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Data Economy is proud to run for the first time the “Americas 50”, showcasing the 50 personalities who are leading data centres, cloud, edge computing and data through charting new innovations or technological breakthroughs, sheer investment or business acumen, or exceptional entrepreneurial skillsets.

Andy Jassy

CEO – AWS

American businessman Andy Jassy heads the world’s largest public cloud provider, Amazon Web Services. A graduate from Harvard Business School, Jassy first joined Amazon in 1997, just three years after the company was created. He has been the CEO of AWS since 2016 and has led the expansion of the cloud computing business in and out of the USA.

Antonio Neri

President & CEO – HPE

Antonio Neri has been with HPE for 23 years having been appointed CEO in 2017 following Meg Whitman’s resignation. He is responsible for the development and delivery of enterprise technology solutions and services that make Hybrid IT simple and power the Intelligent Edge. Neri graduated from Escuela Nacional de Educación Técnica in Argentina and attended the Universidad Tecnólogica Nacional. He is also a Professor of Drawing and Painting.

Aaron Levie

CEO, Co-founder & Chairman – Box

Aaron Levie launched Box in 2005 with CFO and co-founder Dylan Smith. He is the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy. Levie leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so that they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served on the board of directors since April 2005. The executive attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box.

Bill Stein

CEO – Digital Realty

Bill Stein has over 30 years of leadership experience at a wide variety of companies. Before joining Digital Realty in 2004, he was, for example, with GI Partners, Digital Realty’s predecessor private equity fund. Prior to being named CEO in 2014, Stein served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer. The CEO also serves on the executive board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) and is a member of the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics (FCREUE) Policy Advisory Board. Stein has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University, a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Master of Science degree with Distinction from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.

Bill Fathers

Chairman & CEO – Cologix

Over the past 20 years, Father has held a variety of executive leadership positions in the global communications sector across data centres, cloud services and software. In addition, he has served as a Senior Operating Partner responsible for communications infrastructure investments at Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm specialising in North American infrastructure and the majority equity holder in Cologix. Fathers currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cologix and euNetworks.

Bill McDermott

CEO – SAP

McDermott leads SAP’s strong team of over 93,000 staff across the globe. He joined the company in 2002 and was appointed to the board in 2008 with the current term expiring in 2021. Since becoming CEO in 2010, McDermott’s innovation-led strategy for SAP has resulted in expansive increases in customers, total revenue, market value, and profitable growth. He resides in Germany, the United States, and, most frequently, at 39,000 feet.

Brian Stevens

CTO – Google Cloud

Brian Stevens is Vice President of Cloud Platforms, where he is responsible for leading product management of Google Cloud Platform. Brian joined Google from Red Hat, where he was Executive Vice President and CTO. Joining Red Hat in 2001, Brian helped guide Red Hat into the enterprise, with his responsibility for worldwide engineering spanning Linux, virtualization, storage, middleware and cloud. Brian began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he was a developer on the first commercial release of the X Windows System.

Chris Torto

CEO – Ascenty (Digital Realty)

Chris Torto founded Ascenty Data Centers & Telecommunications to focus on the growing need for Internet Infrastructure in Brazil and Latine America. The company was sold to Digital Realty for $1.8bn in 2018. Prior to Ascenty, Torto was the founder and CEO of Vivax, the second largest cable TV company in Brazil. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Maine and an MBA from Harvard University.

Chris Downie

CEO – Flexential

Chris Downie leads Flexential with deep expertise in the economics, delivery and operations of the data centre and hybrid cloud businesses. He is responsible for setting and managing the strategic priorities that drive profitable growth. He joined the company in 2016. Prior to Flexential, Downie was the CEO of Telx Holdings. He has over 25 years of combined executive leadership experience in finance and operations. Downie holds a B.A. degree in History from Dartmouth College as well as a M.B.A. degree

in International Business from New York University.

Chris Crosby

CEO – Compass Datacenters

Chris Crosby is a recognised visionary and leader in the data centre space and has served as founder and CEO of Compass Datacenters since 2011. He has over 25 years of technology experience and over 15 years of real estate and investment experience. Previously, Crosby served as a senior executive and founding member of Digital Realty Trust. He was also Senior Vice President at Digital Realty Trust. Crosby received a B.S. degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dan Caruso

Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO – Zayo

Dan Caruso, avid investor, is the chairman and CEO of Zayo Group Holdings and as a founder of the business in 2007, he has led the company from startup to IPO. Today, Zayo serves more than 8,900 carrier, content and enterprise customers and generates $2.6B in annualized revenue.

Dave Crowley

Senior Director of Global Network Acquisition Group – Microsoft

Dave Crowley is a Microsoft Executive with a history of leading strategic teams and adept contract negotiations to include network infrastructure (Terrestrial/Submarine Cable Systems, Metro/Long Haul Dark Fiber, Lit Services), content distribution networks, data centre relations and design, as well as internet peering/transit. He is highly regarded by partners, customers and executive teams as a creative problem solver, skilled leader, key adviser and astute business development strategy leader.

Diane Greene

CEO – Google Cloud

Diane Greene is one of the most accomplished North American executives and investors having founded giant cloud software company VMware in 1998, where she served as CEO until 2008. She joined the Google board of directors in 2012 and in 2015 she was named SVP of the cloud business. Greene received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Vermont, a master’s degree in Naval Architecture from MIT, and a second master’s degree, in Computer Science, from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dianne Marsh

Director of Engineering – Netflix

Netflix is one of the world’s fastest growing data consumption websites with infrastructure expansion constantly needed to keep up with rapidly growing demand. Marsh is the company’s director of engineering and leads a team responsible for tools and systems used for continuous integration, delivery, and deployment to the AWS cloud by nearly all engineers in the company. She

holds a master of science degree in computer science from Michigan Technological University.

Ellen Rubin

Co-Founder & CEO – ClearSky Data

Rubin is an experienced entrepreneur with a proven track record in leading strategy, market positioning and go-to-market for fast-growing companies. Most recently she was co-founder of CloudSwitch, a cloud enablement software company that was successfully acquired by Verizon in 2011. She began her career as a marketing strategy consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Gary Wojtaszek

President & CEO – CyrusOne

Gary Wojtaszek is the president and chief executive officer of CyrusOne since 2012, a global highgrowth REIT specializing in engineering, building and managing massive data centre properties. His career spans to over 20 years, having also served as CFO of Cincinnati Bell. Wojtaszek holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and History from Rutgers University and a Master’s degree in Finance and Accounting from Columbia University. He also has an MBA from Columbia University.

Hans Vestberg

CEO – Verizon Communications

Vestberg is one of the Nordics greatest ecutive weapons that took the US by storm having been named CEO of Verizon in August 2018. Previously, he served as Verizon’s CTO and president of Global Networks. Before joining Verizon in April 2017, Vestberg served for six years as president and CEO of Ericsson, a company he joined in 1991. Vestberg earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Uppsala.

Jason Hoffman

President, CEO & Chair of the Board of Directors – MobiledgeX

Hoffman is considered one the architects of large-scale cloud computing, having led the development of container technologies, asynchronous, high concurrency runtimes, and converged server, storage, and networking systems. For over a decade, he was CTO and Founder of pioneering IaaS and software provider Joyent (now owned by Samsung). Most recently, he was CTO for Digital Services at Ericsson, where he led a 30,000-person unit responsible for the company’s multinational cloud and data centre infrastructure business.

Jeff Storey

CEO – CenturyLink

Jeff Storey is President and CEO of CenturyLink and most recently served as President and COO of CenturyLink and, prior to that, was CEO of Level 3 Communications. He has held numerous leadership positions in his 30-year career, including serving as President and CEO of WilTel Communications and

President of Leucadia Telecommunications Group. Storey holds an undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics from Northeastern State University and a Master’s Degree in Telecommunications from Southern Methodist University.

Jerald Kent

Chairman & CEO – TierPoint

Kent is a recognized entrepreneur and trailblazer in the telecommunications and technology industries with an outstanding track record for customer service and delivering superior returns for investors. Prior to assuming the role of TierPoint’s CEO, he served as its chairman. He also serves as CEO of Cequel III, which he co-founded in January 2002.

José Duarte

President – Vmware Brazil

José Duarte has been working in the technology sector for 25 years and before joining VMware he worked for Telecom Itália’s subsidiary TIM for 13 years. He graduated from UNESA in computational science and underwent a master’s in business management with the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), including an MIT extension for “Driving Strategic Innovation – Achieving High

Performance Throughout the Value Chain”. He is now responsible for driving VMware’s business in one of the fastest growing markets in the Americas.

Manuel D. Medina

CEO – Cyxtera Technologies

Manuel D. Medina, serves as the CEO at Cyxtera Technologies and he is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Medina Capital. Medina has more than 30 years of experience as a highly successful businessman with expertise in areas including technology, finance, international business, and government contracting. He has a track record of successfully raising funds across the entire capital structure during periods of rapid change in the macroeconomic environment and raised over $1bn for companies, significantly increasing value and providing growth to enterprises through all types of economic climates.

Marc Benioff

Chairman & CEO – Salesforce

A pioneer of cloud computing, Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, which is now a Fortune 500 company with more than 30,000 employees. He has received numerous industry recognitions for his work including by Forbes, Fortune and Harvard Business Review. He is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Board of Trustees. Before launching Salesforce, Benioff spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, where he was the youngest vice president in company history. He holds B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. In 2014, USC awarded Benioff an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Mark Collier

COO – OpenStack Foundation

Collier has spent his career working on technologies that disrupt industries, from “a computer on every desk”, when he worked at Dell in the 90’s as a product manager, to the digital music shift as Senior Director of Business Development at Yahoo! Music, to the cloud computing era, where as VP of Business Development at Rackspace he led the effort to embrace an open source development model and build an ecosystem and community around it, resulting in the founding of OpenStack in 2010. In 2012, he started the OpenStack Foundation, along with Jonathan Bryce.

Mark Russinovich

CTO – Microsoft Azure

Spanish-born Mark Russinovich is Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s global enterprise-grade cloud platform. Mark is a widely recognised expert in distributed systems and operating systems. He co-founded Winternals Software and joined Microsoft in 2006 when it was acquired. He is the primary author of the Sysinternals tools and website, which include dozens of popular Windows administration and diagnostic utilities.

Mark Hurd

CEO – Oracle

Hurd joined Oracle in 2010, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership, computer hardware expertise, and executive management experience to his role with the company. He manages corporate direction and strategy at Oracle, facilitating company activity in consulting, sales, marketing, alliances and channels, and support. Previously, Hurd served as chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president of HP. Hurd graduated from Baylor University in 1979, earning his bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Michael Seton

CEO – Carter Validus

Drawing upon his 20 years of real estate finance and investment finance experience, Michael A. Seton believes in challenging the status quo and specializes in identifying untapped potential. At Carter, Seton is responsible for all strategic and day-to-day activities of the Advisors, including acquisitions, capital market activities, asset management and operations across the portfolio which includes data centre properties. Carter Validus is behind the creation of Digital Realty. Seton received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

Michael Dorrell

Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO – Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners

Dorrell is a Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and has been involved in all phases of the firm’s development since its founding in 2011. He has 20 years of experience investing in infrastructure, and prior to forming Stonepeak was a Senior MD in Private Equity and co-head of the infrastructure investment group at Blackstone. Dorrell has a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce, both from the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Michelle Zatlyn

Co-founder & COO – CloudFare

Canadian entrepreneur Michelle Zatlyn moved to the US with the idea of studying chemistry and later received an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before founding CloudFare with two other business partners in 2009, the executive worked for Toshiba, Google and launched two other startups. Today, CloudFare, a web performance and internet security unicorn, is one of Silicon Valley’s biggest cloud successes with a valuation of $1bn.

Miles Loo, Jr

EVP – Newmark Knight Frank

Loo is well recognized in the industry as a leading appraiser of data centre properties in North America. His experience includes advising private equity funds, institutional investors, large pension funds, Fortune 500 companies, cloud companies and Global IT conglomerates on investments in every type of data centre, including mission critical disaster recovery data centres; colocation facilities, carrier hotels, internet gateways and life science properties throughout the North American, APAC and EMEA regions comprising more than 55.0 million square feet of rentable space and 25.0 million square feet of technical/raised floor space. He joined Newmark Knight Frank’s Valuation & Advisory in 2017 in the Downtown Los Angeles office, where he serves as executive vice president and is global lead, Valuation & Advisory, for NKF’s Data Center Solutions Group.

Nancy Pearson

CMO – ION Investment Group

A global leader and executive in technology for over 20 years, Pearson excels in delivering results, creating new business opportunities and establishing strong brands to help drive digital transformation. She has been responsible for the integration of over 38 software acquisitions, and is an expert and industry speaker on cloud computing, cognitive business and digital disruption. She has helped launch many early-stage strategic solutions into globally recognized brands including Linux, Watson, IBM Cloud, WebSphere, Tivoli and others. Pearson holds a B.A. in psychology/human relations from Pace University, an M.S. in adult education/human resource development from Fordham University and an M.M. in market management from the Columbia Business School.

Nelson A. Weinstein

VP & Chief Accounting Officer – 365 Data Centers

Weinstein has over 25 years of senior financial executive experience in a range of industries including manufacturing, defence, construction and software related consulting. He has many years of experience as a CFO in private equity portfolio companies including a Carlyle company. Before joining 365 Data Centers, he was CFO of Torrent Resources, Inc. His core skills include administration of legal matters, human resources and risk management. He has also successfully managed large recapitalisations and merger and acquisition transactions. Weinstein received a Bachelor of Science in Business from New York University.

Paul Szurek

President & CEO – CoreSite

Paul E. Szurek has served as President and CEO of CoreSite since September 2016 and as a CoreSite director since September 2010. Prior to joining CoreSite he served as Chief Financial Officer of Biltmore Farms, LLC. Szurek has previously served as CFO of Security Capital Group Incorporated, a publicly traded real estate investment, development and operating company with extensive REIT engagement. Szurek received a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Government, magna cum laude, from the University of Texas at Austin.

Peter van Camp

Executive Chairman -, Equinix

Peter Van Camp was appointed as Equinix’s chairman in April 2007. Prior to this position, Van Camp served as CEO and as a director since May 2000 and as president since March 2006. In addition, in December 2005, he was re-elected as chairman of the board, having previously served in that capacity from June 2001 to December 2002. From January 1997 to May 2000, . Van Camp was employed at UUNET, the Internet division of MCI (formerly known as WorldCom), where he served as president of Internet markets and as president of the Americas region. During the period from May 1995 to January 1997, Van Camp was president of Compuserve Network Services, an Internet access provider. He has proved to be a pillar of stability at Equinix and helped guide the company into becoming the world’s largest data centre operator.

Peter Hopper

Co-Founder & CEO – DH Capital, LLC

Hopper is the Co-Founder and CEO of DH Capital, LLC and has led the firm since its’ founding in 2001. During the past 15 years Peter has been central to establishing the firm as the preeminent advisory practice in the data centre, cloud and managed hosting sector where DH has advised on transactions totalling more than $10.4bn. Peter has led many of the firms’ largest M&A transactions including advising Telx in its $1.89bn sale to Digital Realty, advising Softlayer on its $450m sale to GI Partners, advising Latisys on its’ $675m sale to Zayo and advising Cervalis on its $400m sale to CyrusOne. He is a graduate of Lehigh University where he received a BS degree in Finance.

Rachel Peterson

VP, Data Center Strategy and Development – Facebook

Peterson has guided Mark Zuckerberg’s global data centre infrastructure forward for the last five years to power the world’s largest social media platform with more than 2.2 billion users. Her duties include site selection, leased data centre portfolio, energy strategy and procurement, and data centre financial reporting and management. She has been the main face at Facebook when announcing the company’s multi-billion Dollar hosting builds. Prior to joining Facebook, Peterson held a variety of roles at Google and Cisco Systems.

Randy Brouckman

CEO – EdgeConneX

Brouckman has over 30 years experience in telecommunications, software and data centres. Prior to leading EdgeConneX, Randy served as a Partner and Entrepreneur in Residence at the telecommunications Development Fund (TDF). He has served as CTO, COO and CEO at several successful public and private enterprises, including BSG Clearing Solutions, Telispark, Wireless World Solutions and Iridium. He leads today the edge computing revolution at EdgeConnex, with expansion projects across the globe. Brouckman has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Ricardo Alário Arantes

CEO – Odata

Arantes has over 18 years of experience in the TMT sector, having led some of the most prolific Latin American companies in the sector including Intel Capital, Eccelera e Latintech Capital. At Intel, he took to the role of director and was directly involved in over 30 transactions across telecommunications, media and IT in LATAM. He leads today Brazil’s Odata, a leading data centre player who has also partnered with American CyrusOne. Arantes has an MBA in Public Administration from the Kellogg School of Management.

Richard D. Calder, Jr

President & CEO – GTT

“Rick” D. Calder, Jr. is GTT’s president and CEO, appointed by GTT’s board of directors effective May 2007. He has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications arena. In his role, Calder has full strategic and operational responsibility for the company and also serves as a director on the company’s board of directors. He has led the company through much of its expansion and has become a crucial part of the board in pushing GTT into the edge computing era and helping to connect thousands of people and businesses worldwide. He received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Yale University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Rick Magnuson

Founder & Executive Managing Director – GI Partners

Magnuson founded GI Partners in 2001. He is also the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Digital Realty Trust. Magnuson has investment responsibilities for, and currently serves on the boards of Flexential, Far Niente Wine Estates, and CenterPoint Properties Trust. He previously served on the boards of Duckhorn Wine Company, SoftLayer Technologies, STAG Industrial, Waypoint Homes, The Linc Group, Sunset Gower Studios, ViaWest, as well as Glenborough Realty Trust. He is a charter member of the San Francisco Bay YPO chapter and an active member of the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

Rob Roy

Founder & CEO – Switch

Rob Roy is a recognised world leader in data centre ecosystem design, development, and mission critical operations. In the year 2000, with a background in business leadership, engineering, commercial development and technology, Roy converged his areas of expertise to create Switch in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since founding Switch, inventrepreneur Rob Roy has transformed the way data centre ecosystems are engineered and utilized. As the chief inventor and designer of Switch data centre facilities and their technology solutions platforms, Rob Roy is widely considered the data centre industry’s most successful technology entrepreneur. He owns more than 500 issued and pending patent claims for data centre systems, designs, and related industry technologies.

Rocky Bullock

CEO – Open Compute Project Foundation

Bullock offers more than 40 years of experience in the technology industry, with expertise in professional services, systems integration, product design, new product introductions, technology development, sales, operations, manufacturing and logistics. He has held executive and senior manager positions at Dell, IBM, Digital Equipment, Pitney Bowes, Arvato, Quanta, Gateway, Sony OIA as well as several start-up and growth companies. Bullock earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and has served as CFO of OCP since early 2012 and was named as CEO in 2015.

Russell Reeder

CEO – OVH US

A veteran technologist and chief executive to software and cloud businesses with more than 25 years of experience, Russell P. Reeder joined cloud company OVH US from icitizen, where, as president, CEO and co-founder, he led the creation of a software platform to increase civic engagement. He has a history of building businesses that achieve successful exits, including acquisitions with LibreDigital to RR Donnelly and Media Temple to GoDaddy. Reeder specialises in leading high-growth, disruptive businesses that marry a customer-centric vision and strong technology innovation – ranging from his enterprise software experience at Oracle to ebooks, IPTV, and web hosting.

Sanford Robertson

Co-Founder and Partner Emeritus – Francisco Partners

Prior to founding Francisco Partners in 1999, Sandy was the founder and Chairman of Robertson, Stephens & Company, a leading technology investment bank which was formed in 1978 and sold to BankAmerica in 1998. Since the sale, he has been an active technology investor and advisor to several technology companies. Sandy was also the founder of Robertson, Coleman, Siebel & Weisel, later renamed Montgomery Securities, another prominent technology investment bank. Sandy serves on the board of directors of JustAnswer, Pain Therapeutics (PTIE) and salesforce.com (CRM)

Satyen Yadav

GM – IoT Devices, Edge Computing, Machine Learning at the Edge AWS

In his more than 20 years of experience, Yadav has led many business transformations with demonstrated success in identifying new opportunities, launching innovative products and services, and driving business growth. At AWS, he leads the global product, engineering, and P&L for the IoT, IIoT Devices and Edge Computing and Machine Learning at the Edge businesses.

Tim Caulfield

VC & Private Equity Advisor/CEO – Antara Group

Caulfield is a results-oriented, global business executive who thrives in challenging situations where a growth driver and turnaround architect is needed. For the last 20 years, he has been deeply involved in the field of information technology for companies providing enterprise-class data centre services (cloud and colocation) and managed services. He holds an MBA from the University of Oregon and a BA from Clark University in Worcester, MA.

Virginia Rometty

Chairman, President & CEO – IBM

Since becoming CEO in January 2012, Rometty has led IBM through the most significant transformation in its history, reinventing the company to lead in the new era of AI, blockchain, cybersecurity and quantum technologies, all delivered on IBM’s enterprise-strength cloud platform. Today, IBM is the world leader in AI and cloud computing for business, underpinned with trust and security. Rometty has a Bachelor of Science degree with high honours in computer science and electrical engineering from Northwestern University. She also has an honorary degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

William Meaney

President & CEO – Iron Mountain

Meaney is president and CEO of Iron Mountain and serves as a director on the company’s board. He is an expert in records management, data backup and recovery, document management and more. He previously served as CEO of The Zuellig Group, a $12bn primarily business-to-business conglomerate based in China – Hong Kong S.A.R. that saw sales triple during his tenure from August 2004-March 2012. Prior to leading The Zuellig Group, Meaney spent a number of years in the airline industry. Meaney’s first career was as a CIA operations officer. He is a member of the Asia Business Council, and he holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Yuval Bachar

Principal Engineer, Data Center Architect – LinkedIn

President and Chairman of the Board, Open19 Foundation Bachar is a principal engineer in the global infrastructure and strategy team for LinkedIn, which is responsible for the company strategy for data centre architecture and implementation of the mega scale future data centres. He drives and supports the new technology development, architecture, and collaboration to support the tremendous growth in LinkedIn’s future user-base, data centres, and services provided. Prior to LinkedIn, Bachar was the leader and architect for Facebook data centre networking hardware. Bachar is a contributor to the PCI standard and several IEEE standards. He holds six approved US patents in the networking and system design areas and three Cisco pioneer awards.

Zach Nelson

President & CEO – NetSuite

Nelson is an accomplished software industry executive and visionary with more than 20 years of leadership experience. His career began with executive positions in marketing, sales, product development and business strategy at some of the most influential and innovative technology companies, including Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and McAfee. While at McAfee he helped lead the company’s expansion into the network management arena with the $1.4bn acquisition of Network General. CEO of cloud computing NetSuite since 2002, Nelson led the company’s successful IPO in 2007 and its rise from startup to a slate of over 6,600 active customers. Nelson holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from Stanford University.

The final 50 personalities listed were selected based on a range of credentials, including expertise and experience, reach and overall footprint and achievements.

This piece originally appeared in the Vol 8 – Data Economy Magazine. Read more here.

Alongside technology innovation and rapidly evolving financial markets, accelerated urbanisation is one of the major forces shaping the future of the global economy.

Today there are 33 urban areas that meet the definition of a “megacity” (home to ten million people or more) – from London to Cairo and Beijing to Sao Paulo. As the urban population continues to increase, so will the number of cities joining the “megacity” club. By 2030, experts predict that there will be 41 megacities, including 12 in China and six in India. Like those already in existence, these new megacities will pose different challenges and opportunities.

On one hand these spaces will be the epicentre of people, ideas, business innovation and economic growth bringing economic success. London, for example, is the fifth wealthiest city in the world with a GDP of $731.2 billion, making it’s GDP greater than countries like Argentina, Poland, Sweden and Belgium. On the other, rapid growth will put strain on infrastructure such as power distribution, sewage, water systems, transport, education, policing and welfare. Fast flows of data underpin all of these, in addition to increased streaming of rich graphical and video content.

It can be argued that the real heart of the megacity is the infrastructure, and more specifically, the IT that powers a city. The heart of the IT is a network of connected data centres close to the dense urban populations, increasingly in a hub and spoke/Edge configuration. According to Hitachi, the ability to make megacities productive and successful lies in making cities as smart as possible and that technology-enabled living will be crucial to the success and improved quality of life in the age of megacities.

The smart city – and the network that supports it

What unites all 33 megacities is that they thrive, or otherwise, on shared public systems and services, and Governments, technology companies and businesses all want to leverage this urban interconnection and the data it produces. The ultimate goal is for cities to use data to bring intelligence to urban environments, and to improve the quality of life for residents.

The backbone of the smart megacity is the smart network that underpins it. Electricity, supply and disposal systems will all be electronically linked. Automatic traffic control systems will respond to real-time data, reducing traffic and redirecting it if necessary. The workplace and the home will merge and supply chains will be optimised.

Indeed, we see megacities learning from each other as they move to embrace the newer and smarter technologies. Viewed this way, London has more in common with cities like Shanghai than its closer (but smaller) European counterparts, as it struggles with the challenges that come with very high population density. And so we see London moving towards Shanghai-style smart transport systems to alleviate congestion, hoping that innovations in autonomous vehicles, data & AI, electric vehicles and shared mobility will help solve its transportation issues.

Whilst the benefits of the smart megacity are extensive, they will only be realised when digital infrastructures can physically link dispersed machines and sensors so they can exchange information in real time. If they are to tap into the potential value of “big data”, interconnections between people and applications, data, content, clouds and the network needs to be seamless.

The big capacity challenge – the role of the data centre

We know that smart applications require lots of connectivity, data storage and computing power and so it’s no exaggeration to say that data centres will be at the heart of the smart megacity.

The extensive nature of big data needs something beyond a company or Government department’s in-house storage capabilities, and this presents significant opportunities for data centre providers to help Governments and businesses alike to deal with their big capacity challenge. Being able to store IoT generated data, the ability to access and interpret it as meaningful actionable information – very quickly – is vitally important and will give huge competitive advantage to organisations and municipalities that do it well.

The implications of not getting it right are potentially disastrous. Failures in the network could result in energy systems being shut down, companies unable to do business and huge transportation disruptions – as well as hospitals and schools suffering if there was a huge outage. So smart megacities are turning to decentralised energy-generation and storage systems which will be able to minimise the impact of power outages or natural disasters.

Singapore is a great example of a forward planning smart megacity – which is significantly upgrading its systems in order to tackle this new wave of smart applications and to mitigate the potential of failure. Here the Government plans to migrate some of its systems to the cloud and to build a suite of standardised software components, that can be used to more quickly develop new applications; it is a forward looking move that others can learn from.

However, when it comes to data centre infrastructure, Singapore, like other smart megacities will have to mix the old and the new – dealing with legacy infrastructure as well as creating new facilities. For some this might mean that traditional “core” connectivity hubs will have to work alongside smaller data centres optimised for Edge computing. Providers may also need a work-around to cope with disparate local energy regulations and prices – and work out where data centre facilities can be optimally located. As more and more applications are required to service immediate engagement – such as streaming, ecommerce and financial services – data centres must be located and selected correctly for this type of need too.

Multi-tenant colocation facilities have been cornerstones of the Internet economy since the 1990s, and will continue to be important as we enter into the age of the smart, tech powered megacity environment, providing the best in interconnectivity, flexibility and scalability. High Performance Computing (HPC) will also likely power smart megacity applications, as it presents a compelling way to address the challenges presented by IoT and big data, and data centre managers will continue to adopt High Density innovation strategies in order to maximise productivity and efficiency, increase available power density and the physical footprint computing power of the data centres; vital in power heavy big data application.–

While it is still too early to predict the extent to which smart megacities will take hold across the globe, one thing is clear – technology infrastructure will be the foundation, and the sheer scale involved in turning a megacity completely “smart” is not to be underestimated. The world will be home to 9.8 billion people by 2050, according to the United Nations, but the number of devices we own will dwarf this figure, with Gartner predicting 20.4 billion connected devices to be in circulation only two years from now.

When we look specifically at the needs of the megacity, this translates into escalating demand (and competition) for the fastest connection speeds, greatest access to connectivity and the ability to instantaneously scale data and workloads up into the cloud.

For megacities to become smart megacities, and to improve the quality of life for tens of millions of people, the onus is on the technology infrastructure that underpins the innovation. Get the data centre strategy right and Governments, companies and people have an intelligent and scalable asset that enables choice and growth. Get it wrong and it becomes a fundamental constraint for innovation and change.

Center of Excellence International Consult (CEIC) PLC is a team of dedicated, experienced and creative professionals in Ethiopia who diligently worked at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) at Capacity Development Division (CDD), Macroeconomic Policy Division (MPD), Regional Integration and Trade Division (RITD), Social Development Policy Division (SDPD) and Governance and Public Administration Division (GPAD); African Union (AU); Oxfam International Pan Africa Office (OIPAO); European Union Commission (EU) and World Bank Groups (WBG) and professors with ample experience at different Universities.

The Consultancy Firm was established in 2017 with half a million capital by professionals from different disciplines with a wealth of experience that received awards, outstanding performances, and appreciation letters for their professional contributions including strategy development, top-notch policy advice, and researches as well as training. The team worked on diverse areas including business, project and programme development, environment impact assessment, regional integration and trade, good governance, climate change, environmental management, protection and impact assessment, rural livelihood, peace and security, and socio-economic development related issues including health, unemployment and migration as well as event planning and management among others.

In addition to its dedicated staff, the Consultancy Firm has a network of professionals including professors based at various universities and consultants (young and senior) at global, regional and national levels.

Vision

To be a center of excellence in consultancy, research, training and event management

Mission

Objectives

Promoting and supporting the socio-economic transformation of developing countries in general, and African countries and Ethiopia in particular as well as issues that affect developed countries. In this regard, it aims to support the actualisation of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – Agenda 2030; the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) of the government of Ethiopia among others.

Thematic Focus Areas and Services

The Consultancy Firm provides training, research and consultancy works on diverse socio-economic and development related issues including business feasibility study; environment impact assessment; project design, development, management, monitoring and evaluation (beginning, midterm, and end); socioeconomic issues (poverty reduction, health, education and unemployment); governance, peace and security; private sector development; Africa and Emerging Powers /Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS)/ partnership related issues and event planning and management as well as registration of companies and issuing of licence and processing resident and work permit.

In this regard, the Consultancy Firm provides the following services to its esteemed international and local customers such as public agencies, the private sector and civil societies, local and international NGOs as well as other institutions:

Feasibility Studies:

Business Feasibility Study- an analysis and evaluation of a proposed project to determine if it is technically feasible with the estimated cost and profitable according to the total capital invested.

Environment Impact Assessment – to ascertain the impacts of the project’s/factory’s operational activities on the existing environment. There are many possible negative operational impacts on the environment including environmental stress, environmental risk and deforestation. Environmental stress examines the high degree of pressure on the environment caused by the factory’s activities such as land degradation, water or air pollution that affects the surrounding areas and residents. Environmental risk is about actual or potential threat of adverse effect on living organisms by effluents, emissions, wastes, resource depletion arising out of the factory operation activity. It will also see the impact of the project/factory on forest-deforestation.

Governance related issues such as African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Extractive Industries Governance including the African Mining Vision, and Good Governance as well as Developmental State;

Peace and Security related issues such as peace keeping, peace building and post conflict reconstruction; and

Africa and Emerging Powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – BRICS) partnership related issues. We facilitate, organise events, avails resource persons, provide training for policy makers on how best to engage BRICS countries, collect data and analyse as well as produce policy briefs and other research works.

Event Planning and Management: the Firm has a very experienced staff with high networks at international, continental, regional and national levels with long years’ of experience as planners, managers and rapporteurs. Previously they planned, managed and served as Master of Ceremony (MC) at high level events, meetings and dialogues organised by the United Nations, the African Union, World Bank and Oxfam International among others.

Excellence – providing the best service to the satisfaction of our customer.

Innovation – we are passionate to operate above excuses, and firm on introducing new ideas and if there is no, we innovate.

Mentoring young professionals.

Who we are:

Mr. Gedion G. Jalata, Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Prior to this Gedion served as Programme Manager for the Africa-China Dialogue Platform (ACDP) and Economic Justice (EJ) at Oxfam International Pan Africa Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He worked with Oxfam International from 3 January 2016 to 4 January 2018, and got an outstanding performance on his accomplishments in leading the Africa-China and Economic Justice Programme including Extractive Industries; Financing for Development (ffd); Agriculture and Climate Justice. He also worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) where he served for 8 years (2008-2015) as a research consultant at the Capacity Development Division (CDD), Macroeconomic Policy Division (MPD), Governance and Public Administration Division (GPAD) on policy issues related to capacity development, economic development and governance including resource governance, public administration, anti-corruption, and illicit financial flows. In particular, Gedion worked on ECA’s flagship reports namely the African Governance Reports (AGR II, III and IV), published by Oxford University Press; the Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness (MRDE) Report; AU and ECA High-Level Panel Report on Illicit Financial Flows, and Economic Report on Africa (ERA) among others. Gedion authored and co-authored numerous journal articles, research papers and book chapters on China/BRICS relations, development, and governance related issues in Africa. He also participated and organised different international conferences at international, continental, regional and country levels. In this regard, Gedion got an award for academic excellence from the United States Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. He also got an appreciation letter on his research works and publications from Dr. Carlos Lopes, Undersecretary General and Executive Secretary, former, of the UNECA. Gedion also worked as a lecturer of political science, international relations, and social science courses in government and private Universities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and got appreciations. He holds a Masters’ Degree in International Relations (thesis: Ethiopia and China partnership and got an excellent standing) and Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations (His BA paper was on Ethiopian Federal System: Power Distribution and Federal Interventions and got an excellent standing). Currently, he is doing his PhD. His PhD dissertation is An African Developmental States: Ethiopia’s Emergent Experience.

Dr. Messay Mulugeta

Dr. Messay Mulugeta is an expert on land use planning and management of land resources, social impacts assessment, environmental impact assessment (EIA), project development, rural livelihoods, food reserve systems, right to adequate food, climate variability and its implications to food insecurity. His expertise includes policy formulation for urban agriculture, agricultural transformation and its implications for poverty reduction, and PSNP as well as migration related issues. He has also published on an Assessment on the Cross-Border Migration and Contributing Factors in Ethiopia: What Empirical Evidences Are There to Address the Challenges? He also published journal articles on Women, Children and Youth Development Support (WCYDF) funded by CCRDA and Action Aid Ethiopia (March 2017); Cross-Border Migration and Human Trafficking in Ethiopia: Contributing Factors, Policy Responses and the Way Forward for Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences (February 2018) and others. He also participated in many International and national workshops and conferences on land use planning and management of land resources, environment protection, food security, nutrition and migration and climate change related issues in Ethiopia and beyond. He fluently speaks English, Oromiffa and Amharic languages. Hehas PhD in GeES specialization in Socioeconomic Development Planning and Environment, and has double master’s degree i.e., MA in Geography and Environmental Studies, and MSc in Environmental Science specialization in Environmental Resources Management as well as BA in Geography and Environmental Studies. He is an Associate Professor at College of Development Studies, Center for Food Security, Addis Ababa University & Visiting Research Scholar at Fudan University (China).

Prof. Kassahun Berhanu

Prof. Kassahun Berhanu is a specialist on governance and development issues. He has researched and published on issues mainly relating to governance, decentralisation, and political economy of agricultural policy, conflicts, elections and democracy. He worked on diverse governance related reports on Ethiopia for the UNECA, African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), World Bank Country Office; Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) Country Office. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Master of Arts in Politics of Development from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, the Netherlands and Bachelor of Arts (Distinction) in Political Science and International Relations (major), and Public Administration (minor), Addis Ababa University.

Dr. Abiot Legese

Dr. Abiot Legese is a Physical Land Use Planning Expert. He has published articles on GIS based study of soils and gully erosion; Factors Influencing Farmers Decision on the Use of Introduced Soil and Water Conservation Practices; Variation in soil property under different land use types; Wind Power Potential different sites; Landscape based upstream-downstream prevalence of land use/cover change drivers; and Monitoring Deforestation. Dr Abiot took several training and workshops on sustainable land management; GIS and Remote sensing training for Natural resources management; the dynamics of Indigenous agroforestry knowledge; environment and development; ESRI Online MOOC course; on analysis of forest degradation and deforestation using CLASlitever-3 software and research methodologies. He has very good skills in SPSS, R, ARC GIS, ERDAS IMAGINE, QGIS, IDRISI, and CLASlite software. He has a PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies, and an MA in Geography and Environmental Studies and is currently attending Msc. in Geoinformation sciences. Dr Abiot fluently speaks Oromifa, Amharic and English language.

Prof. K. Mathews

Prof. K. Mathews is a Professor of International Relations and specialist on South-South Cooperation including BRCS countries partnership with African countries. He has well over 100 publications, including his widely referred Book (ed. with NN Vohhra), Africa, India and South-South Cooperation, 1997, as well as The Foreign Policy of Tanzania (ed.) 1982. As a noted expert on African Affairs, his articles have appeared in reputed journals in India, Africa, Europe and America. He has also contributed Chapters to good number of Edited Books mainly on India-Africa Relations, China-Africa Relations, OAU and AU, Emerging Powers in Africa, among others. He has travelled extensively in twenty-one African countries and thirty other countries outside Africa including number of visits to China in recent years. He secured his PhD in International Relations from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 1973 for his highly commended Thesis “Regionalism and International Security”. He has taught in other reputed Universities, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, (JNU), University of Dar-es Salaam, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Addis Ababa University.

Dr. Melese Mekasha

Dr. Melese Mekasha is a specialist on education management, law, policy studies and human resource management. Dr Melese has a PhD in Education Management, Law and Policy studies from the University of Pretoria, South Africa and Masters of Arts in Public Administration University of Indra Gandhi National Open University as well as BA degree in Industrial, Organizational and Labor Studies from University of Natal, South Africa.

Mr Rohit Pal

Mr Rohit Pal is a specialist on business management, project planning, business feasibility study, plan and stakeholders management with more than 14 years first-hand experience in USA, UK, Canada, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Singapore and Ethiopia. He has Executive MBA from IIM Lucknow, and M.Sc. (Computer Science) from Jiwaji University as well as B.Sc. (Physics, Chemistry, Maths) from CCS University.

Mr. Yinebeb Girma

Mr. Yinebeb Girma is a talented financial, business feasibility and project management specialist. He has the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), UK, and Executive Master of Business Administration, Faculty of Business and Economics, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and BA in Accounting, Faculty of Business and Economics, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He has over 15 years of experience and involved in financial, project and grant management of various donors funds including USAID, WB, EU, SIDA, NIKE Foundation, Packard Foundation, UNOCHA, USDA, the lion share of experience goes with the USAID grant administration.

Mr. Zewdu Teferi

Mr. Zewdu Teferi is an experienced trainer, management and IT Consultant, business feasibility, project management and mind education specialist. He has M.Sc. degree in Computing Science from the University of East Anglia, UK, and BA degree in Business Management from the Addis Ababa University. He has more than 30 years of experience in management, training and consultancy works. He served different national and international organizations as a manager and director at Information Technology and Human Resource departments.

Mr. Yonas Bekele

Mr. Yonas Bekele is a specialist on research, teaching, consultancy, and business development including quantitative and qualitative assessment of projects, policy analysis and management of regional projects/programs, development of national action plans and evaluation of their effects, providing technical advice to government departments on matters of policy issues, capacity building, and development of bankable projects/programs. He worked at the European Union Commission (EU), the African Union (AU) and World Bank Groups (WBG). He has also worked at the UNECA at the Finance and Private Sector Section of the Macroeconomic Policy Division as a lead consultant and with the Infrastructure Section of ECA’s Regional Integration and Trade Division, undertaking research and advising African Countries and regional organizations on infrastructure policy issues. He has been involved in the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), the NEPAD Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative (PICI) and the African Road Safety Action Plan for 2011-2020. Mr. Yonas holds MSc degree in Infrastructure Economics (Transportation Engineering/Energy Sector), and Policy Analysis and a BA degree in Business, Economics and Finance.

Mr. Biruk Taye

Mr. Biruk Taye is a specialist on feasibility study, business plan, environmental impact assessment, technical and financial proposal, data Collection, industrial development and linkages, FDI and private sector development, and the linkage between industrial parks and Urbanization as well as event management. His recent research projects include the analysis of various strategies for improving market access for small rural farmers that help them increase their living standards, as well as the design and measurement of the effects of public policies and other projects aimed to achieve this goal. He received Mentorship Study from Mogli Foundation, UK, and Development Economics, Rural Development from Alemaya University, Ethiopia.

Mr. Abebe Mengesha

Mr. Abebe Mengesha is a specialist on human resource management and development, trainings, business management, occupational health and safety management, and insurance activities with more than 15 years’ work experience. He holds Executive MBA from Finland and MA in Human Resource Management from Addis Ababa University and BA Degree in Management from Mekelle University.

Ms. Emebet Alemayehu

Ms. Emebet Alemayehu is a specialist in audit, compliance and risk management, insurance and law. She has over 17 years’ experience in the insurance industry. She demonstrates strong and transferable skills in developing, improving and documenting work processes; Operational and Financial works. She can ensure that work units such as claims (the most important work Unit in the Insurance industry), underwriting and finance were meeting or exceeding performance standards and delivering value for money. She has Bachelor Degree in Laws (LL.B) from Addis Ababa University (Graduated with Great Distinction) and another BA Degree in Business Management and Public Administration from Addis Ababa University as well as Certificate in Insurance from Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), England.

Attorney Elias Legesse

Attorney Elias Legesse is among the best lawyers in Ethiopia licensed to practice in all Federal Courts of the Country. As a Professional Lawyer, he has dealt with various complicated cases for international and national clients and successfully settled the case in their best interest. In addition Mr. Elias has prepared and review legal documents in accordance with clients’ commercial strategies. He is a specialist on business transactions and intellectual property; investment, forex and entity oration. He has MA in Federalism and Local Governance and Bachelor of Laws (LLB).

Mr. Nigatu Ayele

Mr. Nigatu Ayele is a specialist on livelihood, peace and security, food security, education, health, environment and WASH programs. He has good applied assessment skills and experience on both sedentary and pastoral communities with proven skills in research, proposal writing, and donor report writing, HR, logistics and finance. He has more than 15 years of work experience as a country director, manger and program coordinator at different NGOs. He has produced various research, progress, and terminal reports, grant proposals and assessment reports. He has also experience in influencing policy at the parliament and consulting key committee members on issues of national security and conflict resolution. Mr Nigatu is a multi-lingual (fluent in Amharic, Oromiffa, Gedeuffaa/Gedeo Language and English) person. He has Master of Arts degree in International Relations, B.A. degree in Political Science and International Relations and Post Graduate Diploma in Diplomatic Communications and International Relations.

Dr Elazar T. Balla

Dr Elazar T. Balla is a specilaist on human nutrition focusing on childhood malnutrition. She has extensive experience on research, consultancy, training and material development, incubation centres and research centres. She has taught different nursing and public health courses to health science students in class. Supervision of health science students in community based educations such as team training program; community based training programs, vaccination campaigns and hospital practice and advised final year health science students. She has also published on community-based management of severe acute child malnutrition; perceptions of usage and unintended consequences of provision of ready-to-use therapeutic food for management of severe acute child malnutrition; and challenges in implementing integrated community based outpatient therapeutic program for severely malnourished children in rural southern Ethiopia among others. Dr. Elazar has PhD in human nutrition (Focus on Childhood malnutrition) from Uppsala University, Sweden and Masters of Science in international health from Uppsala University, Sweden, and Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Jimma University.

Dr. Weini Teklu

Dr. Weini Teklu is a medical doctor by profession with more than 26 years of experience in the Ethiopian health system both as physician and a care provider. She worked on internal medicine, emergence medicine, HIV/AIDS, outpatient evaluation, diagnosis and management as well as in-patient in the hospital. She has an excellent organizational, analytical and managerial abilities; able to thrive in a fast-paced and challenging environment that involves managing multiple tasks simultaneously; versatile and a quick learner who love challenges and adopt well to new situation; self-motivated; skilled in negotiation, people management and interpersonal skills; excellent communication skills and multi-lingua (fluent in Tigrigna, Amharic, English and Spanish).

Dr Abrham Yohannes

Dr Abrham Yohannes is a medical doctor and consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist. He has over 18 years of experience. He has post graduate education in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and is a Medical Doctor from Gondar College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Gondar, Ethiopia.

Dr. Meseret Alaro

Dr. Meseret Alaro is a specialist in women empowerment and adolescent reproductive health activists. She has over ten years of experience of teaching in a university context. She has expertise in planning, developing and managing projects on girls’ education, and adolescent reproductive health and HIV/HIV/AIDS working with government and non-government organizations. With solid research experience on girl’s education, gender responsive pedagogy, and adolescent reproductive health communication and livelihoods. She has been involved in developing training manuals, and delivering training’s. She has been engaged in teacher education programs through teaching and advising in-service and preserves trainee. She has ample knowledge and expertise about the international declarations and policy frameworks on access to education, health, microfinance, ICT, WASH and Energy.

Ms Achamelysh Asrat

Ms Achamelysh Asrat is a specialist on health; emergency nutrition, maternal and children health with over nine years’ experience both at federal ministry of health and regional health bureaus. She has MA in Counseling and Psychology and Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Haramaya University.

Mr. Gezahegn G/Mariam

Mr. Gezahegn G/Mariam is a specialist on remote rural communities in program leadership, and management in integrated development projects such as agriculture, rural livelihoods diversification, education project, healthcare & HIV/AIDS programs, water sanitation and hygiene project (Wash), relief and emergency project, gender based violence, migration & child protection projects. He has over ten years of experience and holds Master’s degree in Sociology and BA in Economics and Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology (health science).

Ms Blen Fitsum

Ms Blen Fitsum is a specialist in the field of journalism, communication/PR and events as a practitioner, trainer and a leader and has over a decade and half experience. She was given a Meritorious Honor award by the US Department of State for extra-ordinary service in leading the Information and Communication Section and ensuring the US government continued to get its messages out in Ethiopia in the absence of the US Information Attaché. She has a Master of Arts Degree in Journalism and Communications, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations, and in History from Addis Ababa University.

Mr Habtom Tesfaye

Mr Habtom Tesfaye is a specialist on IT, knowledge management (KM), software and database development, monitoring & evaluation. He has BSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Addis Ababa University and Diploma in Java Programing and Entrepreneurship from MIT-AITI.

Mr. Elais Tadele is a young dedicated specialist on cinematography, marketing, event management and creative team. He has Diloma in marketing management.

Dr Arragaw Alemayehu

Dr Arragaw Alemayehu is a specialist on environment feasibility study, environment and natural resource management. He has participated in diverse international, continental and sub-regional workshops in different capacities. He has PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies from Addis Ababa University.

Mr. Molla Maru

Mr. Molla Maru is a specialist on GIS, geo-data analyst, remote sensing, Idrisi, ArcInfo, and related Software. He has done several works at federal, regional and local levels in relation to mapping and analysis spatial patterns and temporal trends of land use/cover changes in Ethiopia. He has MSc, in Geographical Information Systems and Remote sensing (specializing in GIS database modeling for crop forecasting) in 1997 and BA, in Statistics (with Computer science minor), 1991.

Engineer Kifle Alemayehu

Engineer Kifle Alemayehu has more than total Twenty Five years Civil engineering experience in : government small scale industries enterprise; international development organization, international donors – government social development organization , government construction enterprise , and private architects and engineers consulting firms. He also worked as surveyor at Handicrafts and Small Scale Industries Development Agency.

Mr. Abraha Weldegerima

Mr. Abraha Weldegerima is a specialist on data collection, data management, monitoring and evaluation. He is an expert in designing survey questionnaire electronically through Cspro (Census and Survey Processing System), Survey CTO, Survey solution, Surveybe and working with ODK (Open Data Kit and Epi Infotm 7 for data collection and data entry. He is also an expert in working with SPSS and STATA. He has worked on Cspro questionnaire designer and data manager in IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) in a survey “Strengthen PSNP4 Institutions and Resilience (SPIR) Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) Baseline Survey. Data manager and Cspro questionnaire designer in IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) in the PSNP4 (Productive Safety Net Program) project conducted by BST survey solution. Data manager and coordinator in EDRI (Ethiopian Development Research Institution) for the project name GAGE (Gender and Adolescent Global Evidence) conducted in collaboration with EDI (Economic Development Initiatives) and ODI (Overseas Development Institute). Mr. Abraha has MSc in Rural Development from Hawassa University and BA in Rural Development from Ambo University.

Mr. Berhe Kiros Gebremedhn

Mr. Berhe Kiros Gebremedhn is a specialist on data collection including smart phones. Currently he is doing his MA in Development Studies specializing in food security. He has B.A in Finance and Development Economics from Addis Ababa University School of Commerce and diploma with Human Resource Management from Addis Ababa University School of Commerce.

Mr. Tewodros Berhane

Mr. Tewodros Berhane is a specialist on environment, agriculture, data collection and analysis including baseline survey, GIS, and remote sensing. Currently he is doing his MSC in development studies specialising in food security at Addis Ababa University.

Organogram

Projects: Past and On-going

Staff of Center of Excellence International Consult led, involved and organised several international, continental and national projects.

The Most Prominent Past Projects are:

Strategy Development and Feasibility Study

Oxfam International Pan Africa Strategy, 2017 to 2020 mainly provided a political economy analysis on and In Africa, and developing the economic justice programme including financing for development (ffd), extractive industry and agriculture and climate justice.

“Agriculture Development in the Current Africa-China Partnership: Prospects and Challenges”, Oxfam International’s Africa-China Dialogue Platform Report (ACDP), 2 March 2016

“Study on Drivers of Success in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) in Ethiopia”, Commissioned by TANGO International Inc, USA, July-October 2013.

The African Union and UNECA, the Africa Governance Newsletter, 2010-2013.

UNECA’s research work and survey on Governance and Economic Development in Africa in Comparison with East Asian Countries, 2012/2013.

Assessment of the Impact of the Guideline to Regulate the Administrative and Operational Costs of Ethiopian Charities, a Consultancy Report Submitted to the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA), April 2013, Addis Ababa.

UNECA’s research work on the Comparative Analysis of UN Convention Against Corruption and AU Convention on Corruption and Related Offences 2011.

A Study on GO-CSO Principled Partnership and Alliance for Development in Ethiopia, a Consultancy Report Submitted to the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA), December 2011, Addis Ababa.

“Evaluation of the Status of the Implementation of the Good Governance Package of the Public Sector Capacity Building Programme of the Ethiopian Government”, Commissioned by the World Bank Country Office, June 2011-August 2011, Addis Ababa.

UNECA research work on Human Resource Management in Public Services in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Strengthening the Capacity of Public Services 2009-2010.

UNECA’s research work on Elections and Electoral Systems as well as Diversity Management 2012.

UNECA’s survey work on Assessing the Efficiency and Impact of National Anti-Corruption Institutions in Africa, 2011/12.

Assessments on Perception of Corruption in Africa, 2008 to 2015;

UNECA research work on the Challenge of Gender in Governance in Africa in 2010.

UNECA research work on Trends and Approaches of Public Sector and Civil Service Reforms in Africa in 2009.

UNECA assessment on the Challenges of Governance in Post Conflict Countries: The Case of Sierra- Leone, Ethiopia and Mozambique in 2009;

“Prospects for Economic Integration in the IGAD Sub-Region”, A Study Commissioned by the Center for Policy Research and Dialog (CPRD), November 2008-May 2009, Addis Ababa.

“Decentralization and the State of Citizen Engagement in Decentralization Processes”, Consultancy Report to the Ministry of Capacity Building (GoE) and the World Bank Country Office, September 2004, Addis Ababa.

“A Socio-Economic Survey of the Farming Households on the Irrigation Sites of the Ethio-Italian Cooperation Program for Rehabilitation and Development (EIPRD)”, UNDP Country Office, Addis Ababa, January 1988.

“Evaluation of the Community Forestry Program in Six Administrative Regions of Ethiopia”, Sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) Country Office, Addis Ababa, July 1987.

Capacity Development/Trainings and Manual Developments

Staff of the Consultancy Firm provided trainings on diverse socio-economic and development related issues including

Developed Personnel Manual and Salary Scale preparation for different organizations.

various Human Resource Management Courses Modules.

Event Planning and Management

Organised a Media Workshop for Journalists based in Africa and China on Africa-China partnership and launched Oxfam new report on Africa and China as well as excursions to the Eastern Industrial Zone and the African Union from 5th to 7th 2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Organised BRICS-Africa Seminar and Launch of Oxfam New Report in Johannesburg, South Africa from 29th to 30th of August 2018.

Organised and MC Policy Research Seminar on the Prospects for SADC Regional Integration through Industrialisation and the Role of China, 20-21 April 2017, Sandston, South Africa. It was organised by Oxfam International, UNECA and the University of Jo-burg.

Organised and chaired a session on Climate Change Related Issues in Africa and the Role of Partners, 11-12 April 2017, Radisson Blu Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Organised and Chaired sessions on Zambia and China Partnership: Opportunities and Challenges to Achieve SDGs and Agenda 2063, 29-30 November 2016 in Lusaka, Zambia.

Organised and Chaired sessions on African Countries Engagement with China and other Partners to Achieve SDGs and Agenda 2063, 28 September 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

On-going Projects:

The Most Prominent On-going Projects are among others:

Organised the first African Forum on Cybercrime: Policies and Legislation, International Cooperation and Capacity Building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 16-18 October 2018 for the African Union Commission and Council of Europe. Activities included providing technical support for the workshop, facilitating accommodation, dinners, catering (lunch and coffee breaks), conference assistance and equipment, visibility and printing as well as transport (airport-hotel-airport transfers, hotel-conference (AU) and conference-hotel for over 300 participants.

Recruitment and Selection for Dventus Technologies.

Business Feasibility Study for Establishment of Handicraft and Creative Art Products Manufacturing (Center of Excellence) for Ethiopian Tourism and Trading Enterprise

End of Project Evaluation for Reducing Vulnerability to Trafficking in Persons, Exploitation and Abuse as well as Recruitment by Criminal Networks through Improved Socioeconomic Conditions in three Regions of Ethiopia: Oromia, SNNP and Somali for the UN Migration Agency: International Organization for Migration (UNIOM).

Facilitated and Produced the Report of the “Regional Awareness and Capacity Building Workshop Towards FOCAC 2018” from 19th and 20th June 2018 at Southern Sun Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya. An appreciation letter was given to Centre of Excellence International Consult.

A Research work on Africa-China Agriculture Modernisation Cooperation: Approaches, Challenges and Opportunities for Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa, 2018. The work was completed and launched at Sheraton Pretoria, in South Africa.

A Survey on Transnational Knowledge Transfer In Comparative Perspectives: The Cases of Eastern Industrial Zone in Dukem Town and the Ethio-China Agriculture Demonstration Center in Ginchi Town for Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2018.

Facilitated the Discussion and Chaired the Sessions, and Produced Proceeding of the Conference on “Recovery & Resilience of Pastoralism in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia’s Somali Region” 26-28 March 2018 for Oxfam in Ethiopia. An appreciation letter was given to Center of Excellence International Consult

Last year, I highlighted the fact that the performance of the Maltese economy had exceeded the bank’s expectations and those of other institutions. Key economic indicators were among the best in Europe, with the European Commission at the time projecting continued, though moderating, strong GDP growth through 2019.

This assessment can be broadly confirmed at the current juncture. GDP growth in the first half of 2018 averaged 5.4%, which is in line with the latest projections that the Central Bank published over the summer. The unemployment rate fell to a new record low of 3.8% in the second quarter of this year. Labour market participation, previously on the low side, now slightly exceeds the euro area average.

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In the area of public finances, the general government balance remains in surplus, the debt-to-GDP ratio extended its downward path, and contingent liabilities, while still elevated, are now within the range observed in other countries. The external balance remains in surplus and inflationary pressures remain contained.

When compared with the information available a year ago, the economic record is even more impressive. Then, GDP growth in 2017 was recorded at 5.6%, now the latest vintage of data puts last year’s growth rate at 6.7%. Growth in 2018 is also expected to be higher than previously expected. The European Commission’s latest projections foresee growth this year at 5.4%, the second highest rate at the European Union after that of Ireland. This compares with a projection of 4.9% in November 2017.

According to the European Commission, fast growth rates are expected to prevail through 2020, although as one might expect, the pace of expansion is set to moderate from recent highs, with annual growth reckoned to stand at 4.4% in 2020.

All this is positive news, but there is also some not so good news.

While the outlook for the Maltese economy remains bright, we have to acknowledge that the external environment is becoming less supportive than we expected a year ago, or even three months ago. Some of the external downside risks flagged by the bank in recent projection rounds have started to materialise. Global economic growth has become more diverse across regions, with soft indicators suggesting that global trade is losing the buoyancy seen in 2017. Partly in response to the less benign economic conditions abroad, activity has also softened in the euro area.

The less favourable international environment partly reflects new restrictions on trade and the response of businesses’ capital spending plans. In late 2017 and also in the course of 2018, the United States introduced additional trade protectionist measures, which have been followed by a degree of retaliation. Although these actions mostly concern trade between the United States and China, the overall impact may be considerably broader once global value chains and the effects of uncertainty on private spending are taken into account. This assessment is broadly confirmed by the latest assessments published by the IMF in October, and by the OECD a week ago. Indeed, year-on-year growth in world trade has slowed to 3.2% in the first half of this year, from the relatively fast growth of 5% recorded in 2017, while growth in container port traffic averaged 3.9% in the first nine months of this year, down from 6.5% in 2017.

Notwithstanding the deal reached during the special meeting of the European Council held on 25 November, the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s future relations with the European Union continues. Should the deal be rejected, the immediate effect would be an amplification of the loss of momentum.

The European Central Bank continued to pursue an accommodative monetary policy throughout 2018, against the backdrop of a continued recovery in economic activity in the euro area as a whole, to ensure that inflation would converge sustainably to the target of below, but close to, 2% in the medium-term.

Following very strong growth in 2017, real GDP in the euro area continued to expand during the first three quarters of this year, albeit at a slower pace, with an annual growth rate of 1.7% being registered in the third quarter. The latest information, while being somewhat weaker than expected, remains consistent with an ongoing economic expansion.

In turn, with the economy growing at rates above potential, and with the unemployment rate declining steadily, inflation should gain momentum. Indeed, the euro area inflation rate stood at 2.2% in October, up from 2.1% in September and from 1.4% a year earlier. That having been said, measures of underlying inflation, which strip out the contributions of volatile items such as energy and food, remain muted.

The situation in international financial markets during 2018 remained very challenging. Most asset classes today are in negative territory when compared to the start of the year, which is a very unusual phenomenon.

Over the past year, developments in financial markets have been largely dominated by several political events, while generally positive economic news seemed to matter much less. These political events ranged from trade tensions, especially between the US and China, to Brexit-related developments, a slowdown in emerging market economies, most notably in Argentina and Turkey, and also the rise of populist movements in some European countries that have led to tensions, particularly between Italy and the European Commission. All this led to volatility in financial markets, with a constant turn in Risk-On/Risk-Off sentiment, which has made it more challenging for investment strategies.

As a Central Bank, financial market developments are of a direct interest to us as these have an impact on both the domestic banking system and the Central Bank itself. While such volatility in financial markets and persistence of interest rates at a relatively low level in Europe have continued to exert pressure on interest income flows and potential on capital gains, and hence impinge on profitability, nevertheless domestic banks have absorbed such turbulence relatively well. For the year ahead, the situation is likely to remain equally challenging on interest income and profitability, as signs are emerging that world economic growth, including in Europe, is losing momentum. This could be also particularly challenging for the process of the normalization of the monetary policy stance in Europe, which is likely to be very gradual.

As you are all well aware, during 2018, the European Central Bank gradually scaled back the non-standard monetary policy measures that it had introduced to combat the risks of a long period of low inflation and possible deflation. In January, the monthly purchases in terms of the Asset Purchase Programme were halved from €60bn to €30bn. They were halved again, to €15bn, from October. The Governing Council currently anticipates that, subject to incoming data confirming the medium-term inflation outlook, the net purchases will cease altogether in December.

Indeed, even after net asset purchases have ended, monetary policy will continue to provide support to the euro area economy as the stock on Central Banks’ balance sheets will be maintained with the re-investment of maturing bonds. The ECB’s key interest rates remain very low, with the overnight deposit rate standing at -0.4%. The Governing Council expects them to remain unchanged at least through the summer of 2019.

At the same time, the Governing Council will ensure that ample liquidity conditions will continue to prevail for as long as needed by reinvesting principal payments from maturing securities for an extended period of time. This combination of very low interest rates and ample liquidity should ensure favourable financial conditions for firms and households, underpinning economic activity and should strengthen the sustained convergence of inflation to the target.

Looking ahead, domestic demand will play an important role in economic growth. The prospects in this regard remain favourable. The still very low unemployment rate and the low interest rate environment should continue to shore up private consumption, while investment should benefit from increased public spending on infrastructure as well as new projects in education and health. Certain capital intensive sectors look set for further expansion. The continued strong growth in permits for residential dwellings should also lead to further growth in dwelling investment.

It is also evident, however, that maintaining the momentum registered in recent years is becoming an increasingly challenging feat, as a number of internal constraints already identified last year persist.

The rapid economic expansion and population growth have put pressure on the country’s physical infrastructure, in particular as regards road transport and health and education facilities. Given the adverse effects of infrastructure gaps on business investment, productivity and social welfare, it should not be surprising that one of the key recommendations which IMF staff issued in January was to boost public investment, to address infrastructure bottlenecks and support medium-term growth in a budget-neutral manner. This need to boost investment in infrastructure was also acknowledged by the European Commission in its assessment of the Stability Programme and National Reform Programme. In this regard, government’s announcement of a seven-year capital investment programme focusing on the road network is an encouraging step forward. However, given that this additional investment coincides with a booming construction sector and more stringent procedures as regards the utilisation of EU funds, the possibility of slippages should not be overlooked.

Government’s efforts need to be complemented with a better utilisation of savings accumulated by the private sector. The Malta Development Bank can help in this regard, by identifying gaps in the financing of viable projects and partnering with financial intermediaries and other stakeholders to develop financial instruments that can finance them.

Apart from infrastructure bottlenecks, international institutions that monitor the business environment flag other areas that warrant immediate attention. While we have significant reservations on a number of methodological aspects underlying such surveys, we also share the view that in some areas we do need to step up our efforts very considerably. This is notably the case as regards the efficiency of court proceedings. Although the time it takes to resolve court cases has more or less halved since 2010, it is still among the longest in the European Union.

Other challenges that we need to address concern the length of procedures to set up a business, the low educational attainment level relative to our peers and a limited capacity to innovate. These are essential elements that support investment and productivity. The development of an intelligent online business portal which ties all government business-related services into a one solid platform should put businesses in a better position to do business.

The new legislation in the area of digital innovation provides the legal framework for business to embrace disruptive technologies. The private sector is encouraged to exploit the opportunities that these technologies entail in terms of efficiency gains, adaptability and overcoming labour shortages which remain widespread across sectors and skill levels.

So far we have managed to address these gaps partly through labour activation policies targeting nationals and partly through foreign labour. However, one has to acknowledge that the national working age population is what it is. With the male participation rate already around the euro area average, a better utilisation of the domestic component of the labour supply can only be achieved if more women take up employment or if the labour force works longer. Alternatively, production processes would need to rely on upgraded technology, such as automation and artificial intelligence.

While further gains in the female participation rate are possible, these will likely materialise only gradually, as the participation rate of younger females already exceeds that in the euro area as a whole, while that of older females does not adjust upwards easily, as these tend to have fewer skills and experience or have to care for dependants. Longer hours are probably not compatible with a better quality of life. Technology upgrades through, for example, automation and artificial intelligence offer a promising avenue, but can be very costly for small firms and also require skills and financing that are not immediately available. Their effectiveness rests on a more active participation in training and re-skilling programmes as well as entrepreneurial willingness to support innovative activities.

The private sector is likely to maintain a high dependence on foreign workers. The latter, however, tend to stay for a relatively short period in Malta, which does not augur well for firms’ return on investment in human capital and productivity. It may also put at risk the competitiveness of our exports and job prospects to the extent that wages begin to increase faster than productivity.

From this point of view, there is an urgent need to understand the factors behind the relatively short stay of foreign workers in Malta and devise solutions to this problem. A key factor that has been cited by firms and foreign workers alike is the recent rapid increase in rent in the private market, but there may be other reasons. The recently published White Paper on rent reform puts forward a number of proposals that should enable a better-informed assessment of the rental market in Malta and which seek to offer greater certainty and protection to landlords and tenants. With the public consultation on this subject now completed, we now look forward to the implementation of the proposed measures.

Permit me at this point to note that the Central Bank is itself an employer of specialist foreign staff, thus we also speak on the basis of a direct feel for some of the problems they face. Apart from the already mentioned rents issue, there are other apparently minor but certainly unhelpful matters, ranging from the difficulty of finding school places, opening a bank account and the time-consuming effort to get an ID card.

While home ownership in Malta remains among the highest in the EU, it is also evident that the changing fabric of society and economic factors are pushing some segments of the population to resort to the rental market.

The continued rise in house prices reinforces this pattern. According to Eurostat, house prices rose at an annual rate of 5.6% in the first half of this year, following a 5.3% increase last year. The deflated measure has also picked up in the first half of this year. This acceleration suggests that although the issuance of permits for the construction of residential units continues at a brisk pace ‒ growth exceeded 30% last year and up to September this year ‒ supply still falls short of the demand for housing.

Continued increases in house prices risk rendering house ownership unaffordable for a wider segment of the population in a country accustomed to a very high rate of home ownership. Moreover, while overall risks to financial stability from real estate remain contained at the current juncture, an extension of recent trends may result in potential macro-financial imbalances.

The year 2018 was a milestone date, marking the Central Bank of Malta’s 50th anniversary of its establishment and also the 10th anniversary of Malta joining the Eurosystem. The latter had coincided with the start of the most-severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. Since then, the regulatory response and reform agenda intensified as authorities struggled to bolster the resilience of financial systems. Ten years on, banks around the globe have raised capital and strengthened their balance sheets. On their part, supranational authorities have gone to great lengths to enhance regulation and be better prepared for the next crisis. Apart from regulatory challenges, the system is still grappling with additional risks stemming from the macro-financial and geopolitical spheres.

Notwithstanding, in Malta, bottom lines remained healthy as banks and other financial institutions managed to record healthier profits in relation to their European peers. By mid-2018, the return on equity and assets of the core domestic banks stood at 7.6% and 0.6%, respectively as against the 6.2% and 0.4% reported by small European banks. But, just like them, domestic financial institutions had to weather headwinds from geopolitical uncertainties which have become more prominent in recent months ‒ most notably Brexit, concerns on Italy’s economic fundamentals and their implications for the euro, emerging market contagion, and the rise in trade wars between economic superpowers which many fear will lead to widespread protectionism. This is further compounded by the negative effects of a prolonged low interest rate environment which is increasingly exerting pressures on profitability, particularly to the more traditional business models of our domestic institutions.

On balance, the Central Bank of Malta remains confident that risks to the domestic financial system are contained. Exposures to emerging market economies are low and limited as credit and financial institutions have taken measures to protect their balance sheet from any undue risk. Despite the strong historical ties with the UK, studies carried out by the Central Bank of Malta indicate that the potential direct adverse effects of a “hard Brexit” on the Maltese economy are deemed to be manageable. The robust economic developments together with the regulatory measures implemented by domestic authorities have contributed to the further decline in credit risk and improving asset quality, with the non-performing loans ratio for the whole banking system falling to just 3.1% and comfortably below the EU average.

Following a contraction phase of four years, lending to non-financial corporates finally turned the corner, increasing by an annual rate of 4.6% in September. This is a welcome sign since it does not only hint that bank disintermediation is normalising, but it also augurs well for monetary policy effectiveness, given that banks are the conduit for its proper functioning. Although such signs are encouraging, we have yet to stimulate more usage of the current liquidity lying idle at the Central Bank. Here, banks play a crucial role in finding new viable business niches.

Key performance indicators for domestic financial institutions are healthy but we must not become complacent. Vulnerabilities remain. Aggregate KPIs only give one side of the story masking the variability in operational performance at an institutional and sectoral level. The-not-so-distant past has taught us that structural overreliance on real estate poses considerable economic pain in a downturn. Indeed, despite a turnaround in the real estate market since 2014, some banks have not yet fully recovered from past overexposure to this sector. While households’ balance sheets remained broadly sound, one also cannot overlook their increasing exposure to this sector. This, in turn, is being reflected in growing concentration in the banks’ loan portfolios. The Central Bank of Malta, in consultation with the MFSA through the Joint Financial Stability Board, is taking pro-active steps by introducing borrower-based measures to increase the resilience of both banks and borrowers to such potential threats.

Undoubtedly, from a supervisory perspective, the past two years have been very challenging. Two banks had their licence withdrawn, while another was put under the administration of a competent person. Despite the negativity of such developments, these are in themselves indicative of the fact that Maltese authorities are actively taking the right measures to protect the sector from inappropriate behaviour.

We must constantly bear in mind that from a reputational point of view we are only as strong as our weakest link and that the externalities that each institution transmits to the system, be it big or small, in the periphery or at the core, is always material in a small financial centre such as Malta. Furthermore, such negative externalities may also impact the use of infrastructural gateways that service the industry, without which, the entire financial sector would be isolated.

We all have a role to play. We have to acknowledge that in good times, there is heavy inter-temporal discounting of future bad events, with calls for less regulation. This temptation must be resisted. We need a balanced view that is stable and fair, but also sufficiently rigorous and intrusive, irrespective of economic cycles. Otherwise regulators will keep being found wanting when the bad times come, adversely affecting many ordinary people and feeding mistrust in authorities.

The Central Bank of Malta welcomes the supervisory authorities’ commitment to step up their supervisory intensity as this is crucial for regulation and oversight to keep pace with market developments. Supervision must remain on-going to safeguard the system from moral hazard, while keeping the bar sufficiently high to minimise adverse selection at entry point. Practitioners also have a duty of care to their clients and the financial system as a whole. They play a critical role in safeguarding its integrity.

Christine Lagarde has recently said that while policies had addressed the mistakes that led to the crisis, there is still much more to do as a “lot of the murkier activities are moving toward the shadow banking sector”. This risk is also indicated in the most recent IMF Global Financial Stability Review as well as the work of the ESRB and ECB related to the non-bank financial sector. The CBM and MFSA participate actively in this work. The domestic non-bank financial sector in Malta is linked with the banking sector through cross shareholdings. These links need to be studied more rigorously, both at a micro and macro level, as well as across sectors. In this regard, regulation and supervision must aim at minimising regulatory arbitrage. Irrespective of the set-up or technology, institutions transmitting common types of risks should be treated on the same footing.

It is also opportune to formulate a holistic strategy for our financial services sector that takes into account a national risk appetite. One must take stock of the risk/benefit quotient of each sub-sector, and the lessons learnt thus far, and put it in a long-term context on where to focus going forward.

During the year, at the request of the Maltese Government, Malta underwent an IMF Financial Sector Assessment Programme, which is an in-depth assessment of the financial sector. Furthermore, a comprehensive update of the 2015 National Risk Assessment was carried out in 2017 and published earlier this year. It identified potential money-laundering and terrorism financing threats and vulnerabilities that present risks to Malta’s economic and societal stability. The NRA forms the basis of Malta’s National AML/CFT Strategy. In fact, some of the initiatives identified in the NRA are already being implemented.

In addition, a Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEVYAL) has just ended a rigorous on-site mission to assess Malta’s standing with international AML/CFT standards.

The local authorities are eagerly expecting the final results of these evaluations as they represent a standardised global yardstick against which to benchmark our state of play. This will leave a wealth of information for authorities to exploit as they direct efforts into strengthening further the current institutional framework and operations. All stakeholders are encouraged to seize the opportunity to improve the reputation, soundness and resilience of our financial services sector.

Malta is also actively working to embrace blockchain technologies, including virtual assets. 2018 will also be remembered as the year when Malta was propelled to the fore with the introduction of a holistic legislative and regulatory framework for fintech and virtual assets, asserting itself as a digital hub. Such technologies provide the benefits of reducing transaction costs which can be passed on to consumers; greater efficiency, transparency, advancement in KYC capabilities and competition. While these benefits are acknowledged and duly welcomed, one must also be sensitive to the underlying potential risks they might pose as they become more main-stream.

The effective implementation of the new legislation and regulation requires expertise not only in the underlying technology, but also in its legal aspects and all the risks involved, such as cyber risks. The fast technological advancements are also a challenge and staying ahead of the game from a regulatory perspective should be given high importance for the successful development in this new field. Thus, while all the legislative initiatives for this new technology to succeed augur well, the authorities need to remain vigilant about the implications for financial stability stemming from the digital economy.

Fast economic growth does not happen without shaking a society’s economic, social, cultural, political and institutional equilibria. This “shaking” is both a condition and a consequence of economic acceleration. It is both an effect of economic, social, cultural, political and institutional disruption and a cause of economic, social, cultural, political and institutional disruption. This is not a moral judgement; it is a statement of what I believe is a sober understanding of the state of affairs.

In the well-known words of the Foreword to the Second Edition of Liquid Modernity, the late Zygmunt Bauman, remarks that “Forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects – but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change”. Bauman’s “liquid modernity” is characterised by, I quote him, “the growing conviction that change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty. A hundred years ago ‘to be modern’ meant to chase ‘the final state of perfection’ ‒ now it means an infinity of improvement, with no ‘final state’ in sight and none desired”.

Of course Joseph Schumpeter, almost 60 years before (and he was not the first one), had already emphasised the centrality of the disruptive process of transformation that characterises modern economic reality. He described it as “…by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary. […] The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps […] (it) in motion comes from the new consumers’ goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organisation […] (as a) process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”.

When confronted with this state of affairs – a state of affairs that is admittedly disquieting and unsettling – the worst possible reaction is to retreat into nostalgic denial, and to pretend that we are living in temporary blips of disequilibrium, in exceptional situations, that will at some unspecified point in time revert to a blissful state of economic, social, cultural, political and institutional equilibria. The only reasonable approach is to endeavour tirelessly and to the best of our technical ability to navigate a reality that is complex, characterised by change and prone to crises. If there is no going back, then going forward we can only go forward.

Navigating this reality requires us to be constantly vigilant to the risks involved, a task that requires us to understand reality and to deal with it to the best of our technical competences. Change brings with it challenges and opportunities, which challenges and opportunities easily morph into each other, and generate further challenges and opportunities.

Of course, the financial system, like any other, cannot reduce risk to zero. We will always face inappropriate behaviour, but we are confident that Malta’s financial system can withstand the shocks generated by such behaviour, given constant vigilance.

Precisely because the economy is everybody’s business, it is in everybody’s business that we do not underestimate the critical importance of the technical competences required to understand and manage the challenges and opportunities that change inevitably implies. It is an aspect of contemporary reality where words matter, where words are performative, where they have practical consequences, where – therefore – it is critical that we know what we are talking about.

In this address today, my colleagues and I have highlighted some of the issues we face as we deal with change within our remit and within perspective of our main institutional objective, namely to maintain price stability within the framework of our enthusiastically committed membership of the Eurosystem and our participation in the formulation and implementation of the Eurosystem’s monetary policy.

The Central Bank of Malta’s Mission Statement, declares that among our institutional obligations, we must “contribute effectively to the stability of the financial system by identifying and assessing systemic risks and imbalances, and making the appropriate policy recommendations”, and that “we must formulate and implement a macro-prudential policy to fulfil the tasks of the bank as the national macro-prudential authority”. We will continue to do so with all the energy, consistency and competence required.

The largest and most complex banks in the United States still face “elevated” financial crime compliance risks as they must more adroitly juggle resources to appease regulators also seeking to ensure better overall protection to consumers while at the same time countering soaring criminal crypto vulnerabilities, according to a just-released regulatory update.

Those are just some of the takeaways from the U.S. Treasury’s Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) Semiannual Risk Perspective covering the Fall period. The risk perspective, as it has done in several prior missives, notes that AML risk continues to be “elevated” due to a bevy of reasons, including:

·Compliance risk remains elevated as banks seek to manage money-laundering risks in a complex, dynamic operating and regulatory environment. In addition, the adoption of new technologies and other innovations and implementing changes to policies and procedures to comply with amended consumer protection requirements are challenging banks’ compliance risk management processes.

·It is important for management at banks of all sizes and business models to consider innovation and emerging industry trends in their strategic planning processes. Strategic planning should include a discussion of the evolving needs and preferences of existing and potential future bank customers.

·Failure to appropriately consider innovation and the responsible adoption of technology could pose strategic risk to some banks. Consumer compliance, Bank Secrecy Act/ anti-money laundering (BSA/AML), third-party, and operational risk should be closely monitored depending on the partnerships, products, and technologies adopted by the bank.

·Complex and dynamic activity is not only in the form of traditional products and services but now may also relate to increases in virtual currency and crypto assets, which may create vulnerabilities that criminals can exploit for money laundering, terrorist financing, and other criminal enterprises.

·The majority of BSA/AML-related deficiencies identified by the OCC stem from issues related to customer due diligence/enhanced due diligence, customer risk identification, and processes related to suspicious activity monitoring and reporting. To read more, click here.

Federal prosecutors will now take a harsher stance for allowing cooperation credit for corporate investigations and settlements by requiring that all – and not just some – senior executives involved are brought to light, a move that will add needed consistency in compliance negotiations but could make leniency more difficult to achieve in high-profile cases.

In a November 29, 2018 speech, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced a softening of the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) policy on giving credit for cooperation in corporate prosecutions.

As memorialized in the 2015 memo titled Individual Accountability for Corporate Wrongdoing (known as the “Yates Memorandum”), DOJ had followed an “all or nothing” policy that barred corporate defendants from receiving cooperation credit if they failed to provide information on all employees who were involved in criminal conduct.

But that strict cooperation credit requirement has now given way to a regime that allows prosecutors to give credit even where companies provide information only on those employees who were “substantially involved in or responsible for the misconduct at issue” and “provide . . . all relevant facts relating to that misconduct.”

On the plus side, the attention on the actions of senior executives could allow financial institutions to do a more focused internal review at the upper echelons of bank, rather than wasting sparse investigative resources on attempting to uncover the involvement of all rank and file staffers.

The new policy “prohibits our attorneys from awarding any credit whatsoever to any corporation that conceals misconduct by members of senior management or the board of directors, or otherwise demonstrates a lack of good faith in its representations.” To read more, click here.

Compliance

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and its regulatory partners this week issued a joint statement encouraging banks and credit unions to take innovative approaches to combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit financial threats, while at the same time also exhorting examiners to not ding banks for trying something new.

The communique was direct on that issue in particular: “The joint statement notes that innovative pilot programs in and of themselves should not subject banks to supervisory criticism, even if the pilot programs ultimately prove unsuccessful. Likewise, pilot programs that expose gaps in a BSA/AML compliance program will not necessarily result in supervisory action with respect to that program.

“The joint statement also notes that the agencies are open to engaging with banks to discuss pilot programs for innovative BSA/AML approaches. As banks pursue innovative change, early engagement can promote a better understanding of these approaches by the agencies, as well as provide a means to discuss expectations regarding compliance and risk management.”

The move follows a statement by the same cadre giving their blessing for smaller institutions to pool AML resources to increase efficiency, effectiveness, lower costs. To read the joint, interagency press release, click here. To read the full statement, click here.

On Nov. 15th, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reissued its existing Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) in six cities, and added an additional six to the list. It also changed the reporting threshold to $300,000.

The new $300,000 threshold is a substantial drop. Previously, thresholds varied by city and county, ranging from $500,000 to $1.5 million. The lower price point is likely to capture a wider range of real estate transactions, beyond the high-end luxury market that was the original focus. The latest round of orders also covers transactions done in cryptocurrencies.

FinCEN’s Acting Director, Jamal Al-Hindi, has in the past stated that GTOs were gathering useful intelligence for law enforcement on suspicious flows of funds, raising speculation that formal regulations for the real estate sector were on the horizon.

The newly covered regions include certain counties in Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Vegas, Honolulu and Seattle, along with the reissued orders covering parts of Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Antonio, San Diego and San Francisco. To read more, click here.

Corruption

Former bank owner who used institution to launder corruption proceeds sentenced to prison

A former owner of Banco Peravia bank in the Dominican Republic was sentenced to three years in prison last week for his role in a billion-dollar money laundering scheme involving currency exchange. To read more, click here.

Terror finance

Woman in New York pleads guilty to supporting ISIS through cryptocurrencies, bank fraud

The 27-year old obtained credit cards and personal loans through fraud, then used the funds to purchase about $62,000 in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and transmit them to the Islamic State.

The woman also sent more than $150,000 in wire transactions to shell companies that were fronts for ISIS in Turkey, China and Pakistan. She was arrested at the JFK international airport in New York City while attempting to travel to Syria.

The case represents one of the few documented instances of a terrorist group raising a significant amount of funds through cryptocurrencies. It also suggests that while ISIS has largely lost its territorial holdings, it remains a potent force in online radicalization and fundraising. To read more, click here.

On Nov. 19, France’s third-largest bank entered a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay more than a billion dollars to US federal and state agencies over illegal transactions with Cuba, Iran and the Sudan.

As part of the settlement, Societe Generale (SocGen) agreed that it violated US sanctions laws by conducting transactions for sanctioned countries between 2003 and 2013, which included a US-dollar credit facility for Cuba that moved approximately $10.3 billion. That business line continued until 2010, despite concerns from compliance staff that dated back to 2004.

The $1.3 billion will be paid out to a host of agencies, including the Department of Justice, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Federal Reserve, US Treasury and New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). The DFS also hit the bank with a $95 million penalty for weak AML controls.

The settlement includes requirements to remediate sanctions compliance failings. For US authorities, it continues a long string of big-ticket sanctions enforcement actions against non-US financial institution, and suggests that scrutiny of sanctions remains a high priority for regulators and enforcers. To read more analysis, click here. To read the full release, click here.

One of the country’s largest money transmitters last month agreed to forfeit $125 million after breaching the provisions of a 2012, $100 million settlement for broad failures in financial crime compliance programs and for not adequately identifying agents engaged in fraudulent funds transfers.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other federal authorities stated last month that Dallas-based MoneyGram International Inc. had breached the provisions of its 2012 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), which gave the company five years to improve its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-fraud programs – a deadline that was up in 2017.

Authorities allowed MoneyGram to extend the DPA to November of this year, but was still found to have “significant weaknesses” in uncovering and preventing rogue agents from engaging in fraudulent transfers from a range of domestic and foreign scammers, a cabal typically preying on the elderly and vulnerable by making wild claims, like a person won a sweepstakes or lottery, and only needed to pay the “taxes or fees.”

To read the full DOJ report, click here. To read ACFCS coverage of the penalty, click here.

German police spent two days recently searching Deutsche Bank’s headquarters and five other offices in Frankfurt, part of a probe into whether the bank facilitated suspicious transactions tied to customers in offshore tax havens.

German prosecutors alleged that two unnamed employees of Deutsche Bank helped clients launder funds and conceal potentially illicit activity, to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros. Investigators reportedly searched the offices of the bank’s board of directors on Friday November 30th, after about 170 agents took part in Thursday’s action.

The case was prompted by information contained in the Panama Papers, the massive trove of documents that was leaked from law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2016. That data dump and subsequent analysis and reporting by journalists ensnared politicians and has already led to enforcement actions targeted at other financial institutions.

Deutsche Bank has faced a series of investigations and is no stranger to enforcement actions in recent years, paying about $700 million in AML penalties in 2017. The scale of this most recent investigation suggests more trouble to come.

One notable issue is the time period in which the wrongdoing allegedly took place – German prosecutors have stated they are examining conduct that took place from 2013 to 2018, at a time when the bank was already under regulatory pressure to improve its compliance controls. To read more analysis, click here.

DOJ charges four men with fraud, money laundering tied to Panama Papers investigation

The Department of Justice filed charges including fraud and money laundering against four individuals, one a U.S. citizen, in connection with their alleged roles in a decades long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co, a Panamanian global law firm.

The case is part of an investigation stemming from the Panama Papers, a massive leak of financial details about secret offshore accounts in 2016.

Prosecutors say members of the group, while working with Mossack Fonseca clients, marketed, created, and serviced sham foundations and shell companies in foreign countries to conceal U.S. taxpayers’ actual incomes from the IRS, the Justice Department said in a statement.

To read more analysis click here. To read the full release, click here.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, top regulatory and investigative agencies stated current and upcoming plans to better count illicit finance, strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) countermeasures and more effectively arm the public and private sectors with more information on criminal and terror funding patterns.

require regular review of BSA/AML regulations to identify those that might be outdated or burdensome; and

amend the BSA’s safe harbor rules to clarify that a financial institution can file a suspicious activity report without being exposed to civil litigation, and that information sharing between financial institutions will not incur liability.

FBI Criminal Investigative Division Section Chief Steven M. D’Antuono testified that criminals use opaque corporate structures to hide the true beneficial owners of assets. He identified the Treasury Department’s recent Customer Due Diligence Rule as one step taken in response to that challenge.

For more analysis, click here. To watch the full hearing and view all witness statements, click here.

Cybersecurity

Marriott reveals theft of information from 500 million customers in years-long data breach

The hotel giant released a statement on Nov. 30th that said nearly half a billion customers who made reservations at their Starwood properties had their data compromised, in an attack that apparently dated back to 2014.

According to Marriott, the attack potentially exposed personally identifying information and passport numbers of an estimated 327 million guests, and the company couldn’t rule out that payment card data was also stolen. The company’s internal investigation is ongoing.

Attackers reportedly encrypted the data stolen on Marriott’s servers to avoid detection, which is complicating efforts to investigate. The attack is one of several on major international hotel chains that have come to light in recent years, suggesting that cybercriminals are finding tempting targets in the hospitality industry. To read more analysis, click here.

As part of its series on the emerging world of digital assets, the U.S. securities’ sector’s chief self-regulatory body, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), tackles key strategies to better store and secure crypto currencies – currently a top target for a wide array of criminal, hacker and rogue nation state groups.

Finra adds clarity around the risks tied to public and private keys and illumines on the various types of storage, including “cold storage” and “hot storage,” referring to offline safekeeping or various online “wallets.”

They key takeaway: any online storage option can be susceptible to hackers, a group now more aggressively targeting virtual currency exchanges and any digital storage depots holding their keys. Additional articles explore Initial Coin Offerings, digital tokens, the virtual currency regulatory landscape and tips to avoid fraud and scams in this area. To read more, click here.

Sanctions

SWIFT says suspending some Iranian banks’ access to messaging system

The Belgium-based SWIFT financial messaging service said last month it is suspending some unspecified Iranian banks’ access to its messaging system in the interest of the stability and integrity of the global financial system.

In a brief statement, SWIFT made no mention of U.S. sanctions coming back into effect on some Iranian financial institutions on Monday as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to force Iran to curtail its nuclear, missile and regional activities.

The SWIFT statement said suspending the Iranian banks access to the messaging system was a “regrettable” step but was “taken in the interest of the stability and integrity of the wider global financial system.”

Having abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Trump is trying to cripple Iran’s oil-dependent economy and force Tehran to quash not only its nuclear ambitions and its ballistic missile program but its support for militant proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. To read more analysis, click here.

The US Office of Foreign Assets Control added two Iranians to its list of Specially Designated Nationals and published their bitcoin addresses for the first time. Nicaragua’s vice president and a security adviser were also added to the blacklist.

The two addresses tied to the Iranians have conducted over 7,000 in bitcoin transactions, worth millions of US dollars, and is the clearest sign yet that the nation is utilizing cryptocurrencies in an effort to circumvent the US sanctions regime. In the same announcement, OFAC published two new frequently asked questions on digital currencies.

The Nicaraguan officials added to the SDN list include the vice president Rosario Murillo, wife the country’s president Daniel Ortega, as well as the couple’s senior security advisor. The pair are alleged to have held sway over paramilitary gangs that suppressed public protests through killings and violence, amid months of public outcry and deteriorating conditions in the country.

To read more analysis, click here. To read the OFAC release, click here.

FATF

FATF report to the G20, noting key focal points under U.S. presidency, including crypto, terror, proliferation

The report set out FATF’s ongoing work to fight financial crime, including:

Strengthening the institutional basis, governance and capacity of FATF

A London-based barrister has challenged a bank’s decision to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) about him, after it froze his accounts and provided limited evidence to back its actions – a move that strikes at the heart of anti-money laundering (AML) programs as these filings are supposed to be confidential and immune from civil and other information requests. NatWest began filing SARs on David Lonsdale in March 2017, when it froze his joint account for a number of days. In December it then froze his remaining six accounts.

When he requested information about the account freezes, the bank reportedly provided ‘limited documentary’ evidence about the SARs and did not disclose them. Lonsdale began legal proceedings against the bank after it informed him that it was going to shut down his accounts.

He made a number of claims, including breach of the Data Protection Act, and he also applied for permission to be allowed to view the SARs. The court granted him permission to view the SARs and also stated that the bank had not given him evidence to back any suspicions of money laundering. To read more analysis, click here.

Howard Wilkinson, who blew the whistle on the bank’s alleged role in a $228 billion money laundering scheme, called UK corporate structures “a disgrace” for their years-long use in financial crime.

Speaking before European Union lawmakers in Brussels, the former Danske executive called out UK limited liability partnerships and Scottish liability partnerships in particular, saying they had been “abused for absolutely years.”

While UK authorities have taken steps in recent years to crack down on misuse of legal entities, historically they have been attractive to financial criminals for their relative opacity and access to the European financial system.

Wilkson also maintained that “80 – 90 percent” of the money flowing through Danske bank was passed through correspondent institutions in the United States. A number of large banks, including Deustche Bank, JPMorgan, and Bank of America reportedly handled funds from Danske. Given the vast sums involved, further regulatory scrutiny is possible. To read more analysis, click here.

Canada

Canada’s Minister of Finance introduced a budget bill that would amend the country’s laws on company formation to require companies to capture more information on their beneficial owners, a move that would follow similar initiatives by Europe, the United Kingdom and, to a lesser degree, the United States. To read more analysis, click here.

The EU Commission recently detailed its list of third countries it considers to be at a higher risk of financial crime and should be prioritized for deeper assessments, lumping the United States, Canada and other regions with generally stout anti-money laundering (AML) rules and enforcement with jurisdictions like Iran and Iraq – but leaving out the United Kingdom.

The European Commission this week took rare and drastic steps to increase legal pressure on Luxembourg and Malta for not adequately implementing bloc-wide financial crime compliance regulations, while pulling back similar actions against Spain after a range of recent improvements.

The move comes as several EU member states – including Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands and others – have become mired in money laundering scandals to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and individual banks in some countries have paid in some cases record penalties in the hundreds of millions of dollars for extensive and longstanding anti-money laundering program (AML) failures.

In short, the commission levied a range of censures against the three countries. Authorities chastised Malta’s financial intelligence unit for having lax supervision of the banking sector with ostensibly the worst punishment handed down to Luxembourg, which was faces a lump sum penalty and daily fines until examiners deem it in line with Europe’s Fourth AML Directive.

A money laundering scandal at Danske Bank involving billions of euros of suspicious flows is serious enough to potentially affect the country’s financial stability, the central bank warned on Friday, a rare statement revealing how lax compliance processes at even one large bank in a region can have disastrous, countrywide consequences.

Denmark’s state prosecutor filed preliminary charges recently against Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest lender with a balance sheet 1-1/2 times Danish gross domestic product, for alleged violations of the country’s anti-money laundering act in relation to its Estonian branch.

In the report, the central bank said money laundering issues at a single bank could spread to the entire financial sector. Danske Bank in September disclosed payments totaling 200 billion euros ($227 billion) through its Estonian branch, many of which the bank said were suspicious.

Authorities in Denmark, Estonia and the United States are currently investigating the bank, which could be facing sizeable fines. To read more analysis, click here.To see the charges and a bank statement, click here.

Estonia is the first country in the euro area where a bank has been stripped of its activity license at the request of a financial supervision authority for breaking anti-money laundering rules, Chairman of the Board of the Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) Kilvar Kessler said at a debate in the Riigikogu about the prevention of money laundering last month.

According to Kessler, the section of Estonian penal law on misdemeanors needs to be revamped, as in its current state, with its short limitation periods, complicated procedures and small terms of punishment, it is unsuitable for the finance sector.

He also highlighted the need to establish a central national analysis center that would handle risk analysis for money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the violation of financial sanctions in Estonia.

The FSA chief also found that the EU needs a central institution tasked with the prevention of money laundering which would coordinate the work of member states’ corresponding authorities. To read more, click here.

Singapore’s Parliament on Nov 19th approved a package of laws and amendments that strengthen the country’s hand in investigating and prosecuting financial crime offenses.

Among other changes, the legislation increases the penalty for failing to file a suspicious activity report from 20,000 Singapore dollars to 250,000 and up to three years in jail. Amendments criminalize the possession or use of proceeds “which would be suspected by a reasonable person of being benefits from criminal conduct”, in a bid to combat money mules using Singapore as a destination.

The legal measures also included amendments to boost intelligence sharing with authorities in other countries, and make it easier for prosecutors to bring cases tied to illicit financial activity in other countries. To read more analysis, click here.

After global index puts Israel in top third of most financially secretive countries, NGO calls for more public scrutiny and regulations to stop rich from hiding their assets.

Israel must immediately move to pass regulations against tax evasion and money laundering if it is to protect its credit rating and avoid being shunned by the international financial community, a tax transparency watchdog cautioned in a report published Sunday.

The strongly worded advice coincided with a plea issued Monday by Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the 36-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to Israeli officials to speedily pass regulations enabling Israel to honor a commitment it made in 2014 to automatically exchange financial information.

Gurria said he would have to report on non-compliant countries as early as next year. The only other OECD member currently not complying is Turkey. To read more analysis, click here.

The UAE has stepped up the fight against money-laundering and financing terrorism by announcing a new law, the federal government stated on Tuesday. According to the Ministry of Finance, Federal Decree No. (20) of 2018 issued by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, will make it difficult for illegal transfers of cash or valuables out of the country to hide the source or to back activities by terrorist organizations.

The decree is in line with the requirements and recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body created to develop international standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

The law is expected to strengthen AML rules and overall financial crime investigations in several areas, including:

Requiring cross-border currency declarations at certain thresholds and across a range of items that can hold value, including currency, bearer instruments, precious metals and stones, and more.

The rules for money laundering will include those who know they are moving or disguising the ownership of illicit funds.

The new law will allow prosecutions for predicate crimes and the laundering of the funds.

The new law is recommending the formation of an independent “Financial Information Unit” within the Central Bank to receive and investigate all reports submitted by financial institutions and other corporate establishments regarding suspected illicit financial activity.

The finance ministry said the new unit would follow up and gather evidence on the transaction in question, and share this information with the relevant law-enforcement departments domestically and abroad.

The unit will also be responsible for establishing a database, or a special record, of the information and protect it by establishing rules governing information security and confidentiality.

The law will also subject many non-financial businesses to certain AML rules, including customer due diligence, risk assessments and filing reports on suspicious activity. To read more analysis, click here.

Alejandro Andrade, the head of the Venezuelan treasury from 2007 to 2010, pleaded guilty in a Miami federal court to money laundering conspiracy after accepting over $1 billion in bribes to steer government currency exchange contracts.

Andrade entered his guilty plea in December of last year, but it was under seal until today’s announcement. As part of the plea deal, Andrade agreed to forfeit $1 billion and assets purchased with the proceeds of corruption, including houses, horses, private jets, yachts and luxury goods the former official held in South Florida.

The guilty plea is the latest in a series of cases that have highlighted the flood of illicit proceeds from Venezuela coming into the Miami area. Earlier this year, law enforcement agents charged former officials from the Venezuelan oil agency and a private banker in an alleged $1.2 billion money laundering scandal that saw millions flowing into South Florida real estate. To read more, click here.

India

India’s national anti-corruption enforcement efforts are hamstrung by infighting at top agency

A battle between the senior officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) continues decades of struggles to set up effective anti-graft enforcement.

The CBI is the country’s top investigative agency, and de facto anti-corruption watchdog. The current conflict at CBI dates to October, when the agency’s director accused his second-in-command with extorting funds from an individual in exchange for dropping a corruption investigation.

In response, the Indian government put both men on forced leave while the allegations are investigated. CBI’s director has now filed a petition to the country’s Supreme Court, arguing his position as the head of an investigative agency is protected from political interference.

The struggle is the latest in a long line of setbacks in efforts to set up robust anti-corruption enforcement in India. Legislation calling for an independent anti-corruption enforcement agency was originally passed in 1968, but that agency has still yet to become a reality. To read more analysis, click here.

In order to enhance the capacity in suspicious transaction report (STR) processing and shorten the time required for STR reporting entities to receive feedback from the country’s Joint Financial Intelligence Unit (JFIU) after submitting an STR, the JFIU has recently developed a new solution, e-STR Submission (e-STR) which will soon replace the existing STR submission channel, S-box, tentatively in the first quarter of 2019, with testing already underway since August, according to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

The e-STR unlike the existing S-box, does not require any installation and/or subsequent maintenance of software but it requires users to have the followings in place when they decided to use the e-STR channel for STR submission: web browser (Chrome and Firefox are recommended), latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader and e-certificate from Hong Kong Post.

The JFIU’s purpose of rolling out e-STR is to allow users to make disclosure via an electronic means in a faster and more secure manner. The e-STR also provides additional supporting functions such as retrieval of previous STRs as well as a real-time check of the feedback given by the JFIU. To read more, click here.

It began with the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in suburban Denver, when two students opened fire and killed 15 people, including themselves.

The aftermath of the tragedy saw the debut of Safe2Tell, a tool that lets parents and students anonymously report information about potential school shootings and other violent threats. Safe2Tell is still in use today. But it began with a simple data point: In most school shootings, at least one person had information about the plans prior to the attack.

“People will call and report, ‘My friend said that they were going to kill themselves,’ and then law enforcement will go out and investigate, and in many of these situations, lives have been saved,” said Beverly Kingston, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder and a former Safe2Tell board member. “So it’s one of these things [that poses the question], ‘Why don’t we have this system throughout the nation to do this?’ It just helps protect everyone’s safety.”

Nearly two decades after Columbine, such tools have become an industry unto themselves and extend far beyond anonymous reporting. Particularly in the aftermath of this year’s shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Sante Fe, Texas, school and law enforcement officials are turning to social media as a way to head off potential violence before a single shot is fired. The reason: As a key platform for student self-expression, social media has also become an outlet for youth to broadcast school shooting threats and suicide warnings.

New tools use artificial intelligence to search for potential threats on students’ social media profiles and scan school-issued laptops in search of keywords that could spell trouble. After the Parkland shooting, lawmakers in Florida took it a step further and mandated a new database that combines law enforcement and social services records with social media activity to help officials investigate students who post suspicious or threatening information online.

While the tools promise to protect kids, they also pose questions about how far schools can encroach on student privacy in the name of keeping them safe.

Every bit of information could be helpful during emergency situations, said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. But he questioned the extent to which schools should be asked to monitor students’ off-campus behavior.

“The question becomes, ‘Where do you draw the line?’” he said. “How much can we reasonably expect of a building principal or a system principal or maybe a dean to be the internet police?”

‘Outcries for help’

To Gary Margolis, helping school officials identify online threats is crucial. Formerly the police chief at the University of Vermont, he observed the growth of social media from a law enforcement perspective. In the internet age, he said, “outcries for help” moved beyond students passing notes or exchanging whispers in the locker room.

Now, those outcries occur online.

In response, Margolis founded Social Sentinel to help schools pick up on troubling social media posts. Social Sentinel collects social media data and uses artificial intelligence to run posts against a “library of harm” containing some 450,000 phrases, keywords, hashtags — even emojis — that he said could indicate a suspicious post. School districts are then notified, via email or text message.

“In the absence of a service like Social Sentinel, it’s impossible to be part of the conversation,” he said. Once the program flags content for school officials, it’s up to them to act on the information. He declined to provide specific examples of how the platform has been used to thwart violence.

Among the districts using the tool is Ohio’s Lebanon City Public Schools. Each morning, Superintendent Todd Yohey, school police and the district human resources director get posts the platform flags as potentially problematic. The tool doesn’t offer identifiable information beyond the social media accounts the post came from, but Yohey said anonymity isn’t a big hurdle.

“Kids aren’t very good at hiding their identity,” he said. “There are times we’ve asked other kids, ‘Hey, do you know who this poster is?’” since students generally know their peers’ social media accounts.

Social Sentinel generally flags about one social media post a day for school officials in Lebanon City, Yohey said, and more often than not, the posts are benign. During the NBA playoffs last year, for example, the tool flagged multiple posts.

“There were a lot of posts about, ‘That three-pointer was the bomb,’ and so the word ‘bomb’ would trigger a notice to us,” he said. “You read that and you figure out, ‘Oh, they’re talking about the basketball game, and so it’s not concerning.’”

Still, stumbling onto just one threatening post would make the effort worthwhile, Yohey said, if it helped the school avert a tragedy. The tool would allow the district to react to a situation more quickly. “If we get a post that said, ‘I’m planning to take a bomb to school tomorrow,’ or ‘I planted a bomb at the elementary school,’ those of course would require immediate attention.”

In fact, a day after the Parkland shooting, a district student was arrested for texting a friend that he was going to shoot up a school. In response, Yohey issued a warning to students: “There is no such thing anymore as an empty threat; no jokes, no kidding around, no ‘I didn’t mean it.’”

Although mass shootings this year caused a spike in anxiety and prompted heated policy debates, they are statistically rare and campuses have actually become safer in recent years, according to recent National Center for Education Statistics data.

Chad Marlow, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said he’s concerned about “subtle harms” schools could inflict by surveilling students. Monitoring could signal to students that they can’t use social media freely to share information with their friends. As schools crack down on student speech, students of color — who already face disproportionate suspension rates — could be most affected.

“The rules governing these things involve standards that are uncomfortably subjective,” he said. “Monitoring places many groups of students, who are already vulnerable by virtue of the communities that they are members of, in even greater places of vulnerability.”

In one instance, in 2013, an Alabama school district hired a security consultant to monitor the social media accounts of hundreds of students — an effort that the superintendent claimed, somewhat dubiously, was launched after the National Security Agency alerted school leaders to a student’s social media threat. The district surveillance effort resulted in the expulsion of 14 students, 12 of whom were black. While some students were expelled for posting pictures with guns, others were disciplined for “holding too much money” and for making the “OK” sign, which police said was a gang symbol.

In interviews, several social media monitoring companies have deflected concerns about government surveillance by noting that the services flag only content posted publicly on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Students concerned about privacy, company executives said, can update their privacy settings so their posts are only accessible to specific people.

Bowing to concerns from civil rights groups, an executive at one social media monitoring company said he changed his platform. The executive, Soter Technologies founder and CEO Derek Peterson, said the company disabled a feature in social media tool Digital Fly that allowed school districts to create a list of students with a history of posting troubling information online.

But the ACLU’s Marlow argues that social media monitoring programs meet the “textbook definition” of mass surveillance because they watch a large number of people at the same time.

“They can call it rose pedals in a field of daisies if they want, but it is absolutely surveillance,” Marlow said. “And surveillance has chilling effects on free speech.”

Monitoring students online doesn’t stop with social media. As more schools adopt “one-to-one computing” programs that place laptops in the hands of each student, some districts have equipped them with monitoring programs that scan online activity like emails and search histories for signs of threats or illicit activity such as drug use. These tools have prompted concerns from digital privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which noted in a 2017 report that students are “backed into a corner” because they have no choice but to use the school-issued devices.

In one instance, in 2010, a Pennsylvania school district paid more than $600,000 to settle an invasion of privacy lawsuit after a high school student accused it of using the webcams on district laptops to take covert photos of students — including a picture of the teenager sleeping in his bed. The district later acknowledged it had taken more than 50,000 such pictures in an attempt to recover lost or stolen devices.

“Pervasive surveillance normalizes electronic snooping,” Gullo said, “and can keep kids from testing out new ideas and identities as they grow.”

‘See something, say something’

Ironically, after a decade of online innovations, some observers say the most effective, and least invasive, method of neutralizing threats remains the low-tech idea that surfaced nearly 20 years ago: tips from actual people.

Schools across the country have adopted the “See something, say something” mantra popularized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A half-dozen states already have anonymous tip lines replicating the Colorado model, and officials from more than 20 states have contacted Safe2Tell to inquire about the program since the Parkland shooting, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s attorney general said.

In October, the Justice Department announced more than $19 million in grants to develop anonymous reporting systems and threat assessment teams for schools. Congress appropriated the funds last spring through the STOP School Violence Act. Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit that operates the Say Something anonymous reporting system, lobbied for the federal law. School districts in nearly half the states in the country are implementing the Say Something system.

Last school year, Colorado’s reporting tool collected 16,000 anonymous tips, a 74 percent surge from just one year earlier. Post-Parkland, anonymous tips surged even more, Colorado attorney general Cynthia Coffman said in an interview.

“Kids were reacting to everything they saw and heard, particularly on social media,” Coffman said. “We’d have multiple reports from kids about the same social media post that said something about Parkland.”

Despite the increase in anonymous tips, it remains unclear what percentage of them represented true threats and resulted in intervention. Safe2Tell is collecting that data now, Coffman said. Still, the program boasts that school and law enforcement officials have intervened in multiple suicide and school shooting threats based on the tips.

But even this low-tech, relatively noninvasive approach has drawbacks. On several occasions, people have used Safe2Tell to bully other students by filing false reports. In one case, a 15-year-old girl claimed someone filed three false tips that she was suicidal and used drugs. On two occasions, she said police pulled her out of class to question her.

In order to discourage false reports, Coffman said people can be charged with a misdemeanor if they use the system to harass others.

While the bevy of tools on the market for educators to see students’ online activity are helpful, officials need to put the information into context and consider the student’s broader behavior, said Marisa Randazzo, managing partner at SIGMA Threat Management Associates. When confronting students about online posts, they should avoid a zero-tolerance response like automatic suspensions, she said.

“That’s a policy that sounds good but actually has an inadvertent chilling effect on students’ willingness to come forward and share information and share what’s worrying them,” she said.

Kingston, of the University of Colorado Boulder, offered similar advice, noting that school and police officials should respond to perceived student threats with caution.

“Adults who are entrusted with these jobs have to walk this delicate rope of also making sure they’re protecting the safety of everyone,” she said. “We want to make sure that our interventions don’t do more harm to students.”

The expression “may you live in interesting times” can be interpreted as both a blessing and a curse, which makes it seem especially resonant these days. As humans stare down multiple threats to our civilization—biased algorithms, climate change, political extremism—it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all the “interesting” developments taking place around us.

That’s why we asked 105 thinkers two questions: What gives you the most hope about the future? What worries you most about the future? Their hopes are listed here. If you’d like to read only about the respondents’ worries, click here. If you would like to browse the main article about this project, which includes responses to both questions arranged by professional field, click here.

The following responses are organized by these general themes: Young people (26), technology (19), equity and social justice (18), abstract “big picture” responses (15), human ingenuity (13), human kindness and compassion (10), and critiques of hope (4).

Because participants often touched on many of these themes in their answers, these categories should be interpreted as reading guidelines rather than strict divisions.

We hope these responses offer some much-needed rays of sunshine to brighten the doom and gloom of the standard news cycle.

What gives you hope about the future?

Young People (26)

Healthy interactions and the human motivation for innovation during collapse, darkness, and pain. The new pathways, connections, and communities that are being formed as we adapt to a changing world. The desire to create and implement Indigenous and new technologies, social and behavioral innovations, contemplative practice, and policy tools for addressing society’s most pressing issues. The intense creativity of the youth and science fiction future they dream to create.

—Selena Ahmed, assistant professor of Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems and director of the Translational Biomarkers Core at Montana State University

The resilience of nature and the awareness of new generations.

—Selen Atasoy, neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford

“Kids these days know that brushing their teeth prevents cavities, and also that human activity is contributing to climate change in a major way”

The new generations and a shorter pendulum rod. History is pendular: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Pendular cycles are becoming shorter and shorter and my hope is that the newer generations will learn a lot faster than we did from history.

—Walter E. Baethgen, director of the Regional and Sectoral Research Program and leader for Latin America and the Caribbean in the IRI at the Earth Institute, Columbia University

Youth movements. Young people are reinventing activism and democracy, finding radical new ways to understand and tackle long-standing injustices.

—Caroline Bettinger-López, law professor and director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law

Kids these days know that brushing their teeth prevents cavities, and also that human activity is contributing to climate change in a major way.

The activity of young people and the understanding of needing to change behavior and shift towards an action-based climate where people are held accountable.

—Danielle L. Dixson, assistant professor of marine bioscience at the University of Delaware

So many of the students I teach at a very non-elite university in the South do not seem, for the most part, to buy into the worldviews that inform the things I am most worried about.

—David Golumbia, associate professor in department of English and MATX PhD program at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of The Politics of Bitcoin

Seeing the hope, the inspiration, the motivation of the younger generation—the students who come to me asking about and wanting to be involved with humanity‘s future in space. It makes me feel like we’ll be okay in the long run.

—Tanya Harrison, planetary scientist, director of research at Arizona State University’s Space Technology and Science Initiative, and science team collaborator for the Mars Opportunity rover and the Mars 2020 missions

I‘m not optimistic that the current generation of “leaders” will solve the climate challenge, but young people give me hope.

Radical creativity—the next generation of thinkers is moving beyond disciplinary and other boundaries that cabin how we imagine our futures and the paths we might take toward those futures. They‘re deliberately combining science, visual arts, critical theory, fiction, engineering, and so on, with the goal of making knowledge that does not reproduce inequality.

—Lisa Ikemoto, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at University of California, Davis School of Law

The political engagement of young people that we have seen since the election of Trump, and specifically the leadership of young women in the reproductive justice movement.

—Carole Joffe, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) and professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Davis

If you look at how much our world has changed since we began to industrialize in the mid-19th century, two things strike me. First it’s an incredibly short timeline that we have made these planetary changes. Also, we are capable of amazing innovation and the ability to change if we want to. I am hopeful that the younger generations will be much more pragmatic, and fiscally responsible, with our future. The ability to live is one of the few things that unites us as a people.

—Gabe Klein, transportation expert, founder of CityFi, author of Start-Up City, and former commissioner of Chicago and Washington DC departments of transportation

My undergrad students. They believe in science, hate hate, and are doing some damn clever things to help the world with those devices that we all keep saying are melting their brains.

—Douglas McCauley, associate professor of marine science at the University of California, Santa Barbara

“Seeing stars in kids‘ eyes when talking about science”

The younger generation who are angry, really good at organizing, and remind me of my grandparents’ generation—all of whom were anti-fascist activists. Good luck to them. They are going to need it.

Seeing stars in kids‘ eyes when talking about science (in general, or astronomy in particular) —yes, the cosmos is marvelous and yours to discover!

—Yaël Nazé, author and astrophysicist at the University of Liège, Belgium

The next generation is neither afraid of nor in awe of digital technologies, and better equipped than past generations (including most of our current political establishment) to make good use of them, be skeptical of and interested in, rather than complacent or frantic about, the companies behind them. It faces the question of how we make sure technological progress also delivers broad-based public benefits.

—Rasmus Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, professor of political communication at the University of Oxford, and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics

The extraordinary potential of younger generations to take on huge challenges with fresh ideas, unintimidated by past failures and comfortable with complexity. That and the pure joy in the faces of children, my grandchildren, and kids everywhere. Experience that and you feel compelled to “think positively.”

—Irwin Redlener, president emeritus and co-founder of Children’s Health Fund, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at The Earth Institute—Columbia University, and professor at Columbia University Medical Center

Young people. My students, and young people around the world, are standing up for their right to inherit a livable plant, and it inspires me every day.

—Travis Rieder, assistant director of education initiatives, director of the Master of Bioethics degree program, and research scholar at Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Young people. They are committed, engaged, inclusive, and sensible (for the most part). I hope that they vote!

—Jenny Saffran, language acquisition expert and professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

The energy and hope I see among college students.

—Emin Gün Sirer, associate professor of computer science at Cornell University and co-director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contract (IC3)

We have lots of bright young people who are so much better educated and have so many more resources and opportunities than previous generations. They will clearly carve out a better, more equitable and environmentally friendly society.

—Hugh R. Taylor, immediate past president of the International Council of Ophthalmology, Melbourne Laureate Professor, and Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia

Young people and the power of networks. Particularly the ones who are standing up and using whatever platform they have for good. They’re questioning dated policy, challenging stereotypes, and teaching all of us a lesson in speaking out for what is right.

—Jess Wade, physicist at the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London

Teenagers.

—Lucianne Walkowicz, Baruch S. Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress and astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago

The students and alumnae of wonderful institutions of higher learning like Spelman College.

Technology (19)

Part of the human imperative is to innovate, but sometimes innovation also requires regulation to keep it from having harmful effects. With the accelerating pace of technological change, many industries have now taken the challenges and responsibility of regulating into their own hands—developing rules that industry members are expected to follow even if they do not have the force of law. This approach—called “soft law”—has the potential to both allow rapid technological innovation and rapid regulatory innovation to limit negative consequences of new technology.

Artificial intelligence, CRISPR: changing inherited diseases via DNA editing. Note that I also put AI [in my “worries” answer]. I always use the analogy with nuclear power; it can make war, or aid the energy needs of mankind.

—Jules Jaffe, research oceanographer with the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

The democratization of access to basic services like education, healthcare, mobility, and security for the emerging middle class across cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is driven by artificial intelligence and the proliferation of the mobile phone, and it empowers young people to learn, innovate, and build a better future for themselves.

The ability to communicate online: Despite bots, trolls, and filter bubbles, the internet continues to be an unprecedented democratizing force that gives individuals who previously lacked a platform the ability to share new perspectives, highlight hitherto ignored problems, and organize to solve them, as movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo have demonstrated.

—Jingmei Li, senior research scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore

“More and more governments in the developing world are seeing science, technology, and innovation as pillars of society”

The possibility of computing and robotics will lead to a day where there are no more disasters—because disasters can be predicted and prepared for and because the response and recovery are immediate and seamless.

—Dr. Robin Murphy, professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M University

More and more governments in the developing world are seeing science, technology, and innovation as pillars of society. I can foresee more investment in science education and development in the future.

Carbon sequestration technology. It‘s not where it needs to be yet, but is making dramatic improvements in terms of cost and viability. Reversing the impact of climate change and the mass migrations it will cause requires us to not just curb our emissions but to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and bury it back into rocks. The question now is, will we cut our emissions and start sequestering carbon soon enough to avoid the worst and deadliest outcomes of climate change?

—Sarah Rugheimer, astronomer, astrobiologist, and Glasstone research fellow at the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department at University of Oxford

The developments in technology in the past 50 years show how creative humanity can be, and in an accelerating pace, at that. I am optimistic that we will be better off, and better integrated, in the 22nd century, even if we do not all live on the same planet.

—Dimitar D. Sasselov, Phillips Professor of Astronomy and director of the Origins of Life Initiative at Harvard University

We’ve made incredible progress in solving hard computer science problems in research. If we could translate even a small fraction of these ideas into real-world solutions, we’ll be in great shape.

—Jean Yang, computer science researcher and entrepreneur, USA

We will continue to advance fundamental science along with revolutionary development of technologies that will lift the living standards for an increasingly large fraction of people on the Earth.

—Jun Ye, fellow of JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and University of Colorado

Equity and Social Justice (18)

The increasing value being placed on importance of recognizing First Nations culture within broader society. A different way of being with each other and the land is possible.

For each news story about plastic ocean pollution, there are others on people actively testing remedial measures and inventing biodegradable alternatives.

A focus on creativity, compassion, and connected thinking as critical skills for future work opportunities means we may be better suited to impacts of automation and artificial intelligence, but these also seem like skills well-suited for creating healthier societies.

African scientists transforming the world one massive problem at a time by using the highest tech science and innovation to solve problems. Hunger will end when science becomes a diverse, inclusive place—and then all the other massive challenges will fall too. Striving for true partnerships in science and technology gets me out of bed.

—Laura Boykin, computational biologist and head of Boykin Lab at the University of Western Australia

“The #MeToo movement. Shame is shifting from victim to predator”

Seeing problems like the issue of bias in artificial intelligence being worked by such incredible and diverse minds like Renee Teate, Vincente Ordóñez Román, and Ines Montani (just to name a few) is a serious relief. These people are committed to solving a problem that has plagued humanity since the dawn of mankind. Their job is nothing less than eliminating human prejudice from electrical thought processing, and their work so far is astounding. Anyone doing this work are heroes to me and are doing a job that is desperately needed to secure a safer future for all of humanity.

—Emily Crose, cybersecurity expert and former NSA analyst, USA

Pissed-off women fighting for change.

—Jason De León, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and director of undergraduate studies in anthropology at the University of Michigan

Many more scientists are aware of how science has contributed to creating and perpetuating disparities and inequities and are working hard to bend the arc of science towards social justice.

The #MeToo movement. Shame is shifting from victim to predator. Now is the moment to fill our courts with criminal and civil actions holding these malicious people accountable. Combined with education, it will deter.

(Sadly) that the #MeToo movement can even happen now shows we have made progress in 30 years. I hope and believe that progress will continue.

—Mark Halpern, professor in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, Canada

Our ability to imagine a new future, to conceptualize and explore new truths. Artists are trained to visualize original ideas, create discourse that can lead us with creativity. It is our time to examine our economic, political, and religious systems; do these systems work for all people? If not, how do we use an intersectional praxis to create solutions that are harmonious, thoughtful, and filled with empathy and connection?

—Gabrielle Hecht, Frank Stanton Foundation Professor of Nuclear Security and professor of history at Stanford University

International cooperations in fundamental science (such as LHC, LIGO) and their impact on cutting-edge technologies and education could smoothen geopolitical relations, bringing science to global decision-making. This may give incentive to developing nations and tech industries to devote resources towards sciences.

—Karan Jani, PhD, gravitational wave astrophysicist at the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics at Georgia Institute of Technology and a scientist with the LIGO experiment

Women, as they rise and claim their share of power and responsibility.

—Izabella Łaba, professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia, Canada

There are going to be amazing things learned about the universe over the next decades, maybe reaching the point of answering the question as to whether life in the universe is extremely rare or common. But while that’s exciting and deeply important to our perspective as humans in weeks like this, it seems trivial compared to the whole massive disruption and death and injustice thing. What gives me (a little) hope is the spread of opportunity and access to information and education to groups and places that historically didn’t have those opportunities—increasing fairness and remedying injustice and also vastly increasing the pool of people who work to solve problems.

An increasingly connected world may enable social innovations that will help us improve the human condition, rather than remain myopically focused on short-term gain.

—Michele Mosca, co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization of the Faculty of Mathematics, and founding member of Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada

The barriers to disseminating and sharing information have decreased substantially, making it unlikely that people who might contribute to the solutions will be unaware of the problems facing us. It’s more likely that we will be able to find solutions by bringing together people from across multiple disciplines.

—Chetan Nayak, director of Station Q, Microsoft Quantum and professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara

A lot of young women have come out of their shells to lend their voices to menaces in society.

—Dr. Eucharia Oluchi Nwaichi, environmental biochemist, soil scientist, and toxicologist at the University of Nottingham, UK

“Righteous anger about our political moment is driving a powerful wave of activism and organizing”

The rise and growing power of the feminine, particularly the associated values and priorities, such as caring for each other, the planet and other creatures; (some) men’s growing acceptance of their own feminine aspects; and the visible evidence of the disintegration of patriarchy (despite the backlash).

—Elaine Power, expert on food insecurity and associate professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University, Canada

The fusion of many businesses, industries, churches, students, all to make faster progress.

—Diana Wall, director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability and professor of biology at Colorado State University

Righteous anger about our political moment is driving a powerful wave of activism and organizing. So many people, including scientists and technologists, are advocating for justice instead of access to power. I want to believe that good will win.

—Audra Wolfe, science historian and author of Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science

‘Big Picture’ and Abstract Hopes (15)

We are proof that mental processes and intelligence spontaneously arise in appropriate “mashups” of proto-cognitive bits and pieces of memory, correlated states, and state transitions, and, therefore, that mental kinds are fundamental properties of nature. It’s not at all clear that life, per se, is a prerequisite for such mashups to occur. The idea that eventually we might well be viewed as surrounded by and embedded in as well as individually reflecting these properties seems wonderful.

—Chris Barrett, director of the Biocomplexity Institute at the University of Virginia

The fact that the future doesn‘t need humans.

—Matteo Bittanti, assistant professor in Media Studies and head of MA Program in Game Design at IULM University, Italy

“Everything I can currently imagine about it is likely silly and wrong”

[Quoting Ursula Le Guin] “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable—but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” From your lips to the ears of the Kindly Ones, O wise dame.

We are still in time to realize that we could be the salvation, instead of the destroyer, of our planet’s life by keeping it healthy on Earth and helping its reproduction in the universe. And in this way, eventually, find a meaning for our own lives in the cosmic evolution of life.

Being an archaeologist often helps me to lean back, take a deep breath, and relax. Civilization’s end has been announced so often, but happened (although, subjectively, it did from time to time) rather rarely. So, I’m honestly not too alarmed about the future. Yes, it looks a bit cloudy right now, but I’ve also got hopes about our species’ urge to survive. Culture finds a way (to paraphrase a well known movie tagline). It’s almost like this old joke about the optimist who thinks that we live in the best of all worlds. And the pessimist, who’s afraid that this is true. It’s up to you and me to make the place a more comfortable one.

—Jens Notroff, archaeologist at German Archaeological Institute

Our persistent imagination and tireless pursuit of better futures.

—Cynthia Selin, associate professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

People.

—Huey-Jen Jenny Su, air pollution expert and president of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan

The future hasn’t happened yet. We are creating it together, right now, in the present, which means that every person alive today has an opportunity to play a beneficial role in the future of artificial intelligence. We can choose something different—we can manifest our own preferred futures.

—Amy Webb, quantitative futurist, professor of strategic foresight at New York University Stern School of Business, and founder of the Future Today Institute

Human Ingenuity (13)

The possibility that collective learning will happen from all of the experimentation happening around the world with how to solve enormous problems, from trials of basic income payments to ways of making renewable energy work well in the market.

—Bruce Bimber, professor in the department of political science and the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara

“We do a lot of stupid things, but can think deeply with our big brains and are able to learn from experience”

It won’t be like the past. We will constrain consumption through a shift of at least two orders of magnitude in the efficiency of consumption of raw materials. This needs to be based on systemic innovations in almost all aspect of our economies.

—Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the United Kingdom and professor of biology at the University of St. Andrews

We have the ability to alleviate the problems if we design our systems with flexibility, rather than optimality, in mind. Doing so will require a sustained investment in “system architecture”—explicitly designing how information flows in complex systems. We should select for, and train, interdisciplinary thinkers who excel at communicating complex concepts to overburdened decision-makers.

—David Broniatowski, assistant professor at George Washington University’s department of engineering management and systems engineering and director of the Decision Making and Systems Architecture Lab and the GW SEAS Data Analytics Master’s program

Human ingenuity. We do a lot of stupid things, but can think deeply with our big brains and are able to learn from experience. Dinosaurs weren’t able to do this, so they couldn’t save themselves from the asteroid. I have no doubt that, somewhere out there among the billions of humans on our planet today, is the genius that can figure out how to deal with climate change, by inventing new ways of harvesting non-traditional energy sources and making our societies more resilient. Let’s hope that we can keep progressing to a more equal and just world, so that person (or those people) will have the opportunities to use their brains to save us.

Humans are very smart. We can think not only of solutions to problems but also are capable of remarkable insights and inventions. I work on fundamental science. The same drive that pushes us to explore our Earth, to head into space, and to think about the Cosmos, has given us the brainpower to survive and I hope it always will.

—Katherine Freese, George Eugene Uhlenbeck Collegiate Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and guest professor of physics at Stockholm University, Sweden

Humankind created most of this problem and therefore humankind has the power to stop it.

—Mitchell Joachim, associate professor of practice at New York University and co-founder of Terreform ONE

The use of our expanding intellectual prowess to accelerate our appreciation of the universe.

—Chung-Pei Ma, Judy Chandler Webb Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley

Humans are adaptable. That’s how we got to where we are now.

—Asia Murphy, wildlife photographer, writer, and PhD student in ecology at Pennsylvania State University

Humanity has done wonderful things on Earth and can move on to do even more wonderful things among the stars, provided we keep a healthy reserve of boundless, irreverent, and unreasonable optimism. “The meek will inherit the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars” (a quote often attributed to [Robert] Heinlein’s Lazarus Long).

The number of good people who want and can do better, and people’s desire to be inspired. I am also personally inspired by how much we have learned in the last century and the ingenuity and perseverance that has led to great achievements.

We have the recipe for success as a species: We are incredibly resilient and creative in the face of adversity, can build on the knowledge and developments of prior generations, and have a unique capacity for individual self-improvement over the course of a single lifetime. If you are reading this, you are amazingly lucky to be alive right now, because today is the best time to be alive in human history. Yesterday was the best time before that, and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

—Daniel Szafir, assistant professor of computer science, creative technologies, and information science, and aerospace engineering and director of the Interactive Robotics and Novel Technologies Laboratory (IRON Lab) at the University of Colorado at Boulder

The amazing capacity of human beings to contradict the established “truths” and predictions of often pessimistic experts and gurus, and to bring our civilization forward with new ideas, discoveries, and innovations. This has been demonstrated several times throughout the history of humanity.

Human Kindness and Compassion (10)

Survival is, despite it all, our most deeply-seated instinct, followed by love. Greed and hate are deviations and, ultimately, require too much effort to be sustainable. We will find our way out of this dark, dark valley. We always have.

The sustained engagement I see among people, in science, life, and with one another.

—Melissa Wilson Sayres, computational biologist and assistant professor at Arizona State University

There are a lot of people who are kind and smart.

—Paul Shepson, atmospheric scientist, USA

The basic goodness, inquisitiveness, and inventiveness of humanity. We don’t always do things the best way, but in the large our species has at its core a genuine goodness and through that we’ve made a lot of progress in how we manage both ourselves and our planet. Moreover, we continue to create brighter futures through our inquisitiveness and inventiveness.

Local governments and NGOs are doing great work to embrace facts and to make necessary changes to improve the environment and human health. I see effective actions that come out of grassroot efforts.

—Pamela Templer, professor in the department of biology and director of the PhD Program in Biogeoscience at Boston University

Critiques of Hope (4)

Equality and rights are rarely handed out, so hope alone will not do. Surely, humans are capable of devising alternate forms of democratic participation toward a more equitable distribution of the common and public good.

—Maurizio Albahari, anthropologist and associate professor at University of Notre Dame

Hope is a dangerous word. It’s what we do when we feel we’ve lost control or are powerless to do anything more. We “hope” someone else (like the government) will fix the problem, or a scientist will “science” us out of the mess we’re in. I encourage people not to hope, but to do. Do something. Clean a beach. Commit to bamboo toothbrushes rather than plastic. Replace your lawn with native trees. Do whatever you can that’s positive and within your ability. Sometimes it’s hard, but sometimes it’s easy. Either way, we can all do better and our future relies on it.

—Jennifer Lavers, research scientist at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia

I do not see where the hope should come from.

—Daniele Mortari, professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University

I am not sure hope is the thing to count on in grim times like these. If you follow climate science, you know what “grim” means. And you might despair and give up, so hope is not all that reliable a thing if you want to be able to act. What if, instead of seeking hope, we seek meaning? So no matter whether things are hopeful or not, we can choose to live in a way that is based on an ethical consideration of what it means to be a human on Planet Earth, which includes working together. Lone rangers won’t save us! This is the age of a million heroes.

Paradoxically for me, after I decided to abandon the twin traps of hope and despair and started working with others on this issue, I’ve found a kind of hope after all. Consider the movements around the world that connect the struggle for human dignity with the need for a livable climate and biosphere. I am fascinated by the possibility of a new scientific paradigm emerging from the fact that climate change challenges so many of our conventional ways of thinking. It is an exciting time to be alive.

—Vandana Singh, science fiction author and professor in the department of Physics and Earth Science at Framingham State University

Today’s global enterprises are driven towards digital business transformation to become more agile, consolidate IT infrastructure, and reduce costs often by migrating applications to a public cloud. The promise of the public cloud has been hailed as the solution to achieving much of this, but cloud migration is a major initiative that doesn’t come without its concerns, and price tag – and it shouldn’t be attempted without firm answers to crucial questions.

So how do IT executives and IT operations teams make sure they do it right?

Navigating the stages of cloud migration

Firstly, it is vital to choose the right cloud solution provider for the business’ unique needs. Each key business application may even have its own CSP as multi-cloud deployments are becoming increasingly popular. With so many bold claims from cloud vendors, how does one know with certainty which solution is right for each of their business’ particular application workloads, ensuring no latency or downtime issues?

Then, decisions need to be made as to which data to migrate, as recalling data, and cloud repatriation itself (if a mistake is made), can be prohibitively expensive. There are also compliance and security minefields to navigate; for many organisations, migrating data means potentially making the business (and customer data) exposed to security risks. Furthermore, the major cloud service providers don’t currently offer service level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee application performance which can impact customers, as after all, the cloud is just another datacentre, subject to the same vulnerabilities as any other.

So is it still possible to achieve all of the benefits the promise of cloud has to offer – without all of these costly risks? The answer is yes. There are innovative tools to help organisations understand performance, assess cost performance trade-offs, and provide insights to de-risk the process prior to migration.

Predicting application workload behaviour in the cloud

The reason cloud migration goes wrong for many organisations is that, up until recently, there was no accurate way for organisations to know for sure how business-critical applications would perform in a particular cloud. There was no scenario or test to gain insights into the behaviour of their bespoke workloads prior to migration. These insights are especially critical to the success of a digital transformation strategy, leading to the utopia of business agility, performance scalability and cost-effectiveness that enterprises crave.

A successful cloud migration project starts with understanding on-premise application workload profiles. This workload intelligence, combined with dependency mapping (to analyse the knock-on effect systems can potentially have on one another, e.g. during peak times), add critical insight to the decision-making process, and significantly reduce the time it takes to successfully migrate a significant number of varying workloads to the cloud.

As already mentioned, cloud providers don’t offer SLAs for the performance of applications in the cloud, and without these vital insights, organisations have no way of knowing whether the throughput of their applications will be improved, or run slower in the cloud than in their current environment. If more capacity or resource is required to alleviate the problem, the cloud costs could rise. Which is why benchmarking application performance prior to migration is an important step in the journey. With the proper tools, enterprises can methodically validate the suitability of the targeted applications based on their on-premises performance requirements.

Application workloads all perform very differently, experiencing peaks and troughs in behaviour depending on the environment and resource demands at any given time. All of this information needs to be gathered in advance of cloud migration in order to understand the patterns of behaviour and application requirements in the cloud. Knowing how applications will perform in the public cloud and certainty as to how much it will cost, are vital pieces of information that enterprises should be absolutely clear on before migration.

The innovation behind cloud migration planning tools

The right service/solution should have the capability to simulate and validate cloud workload performance before migrating the workloads. It should establish whether migrated workloads are performing adequately, and provide guidance on the next steps if this isn’t the case. With such a solution, IT executives can effectively compare and contrast estimated costs and viability of various cloud platforms. Such cloud migration readiness services must also offer the ability to select the optimal CPU, memory, network and storage configuration for each migrated workload using simulated workloads.

Performance dashboards can now reveal how different applications housed in an organisation’s datacentre will use resources in AWS, for example. IT teams can easily see how much leeway they have in terms of storage vacancy, or RAM during peak times. Extremely detailed information on historical performance can be captured over both long and short periods of time, which can be synthesised, and then scenario tested against each different cloud service provider configuration, so performance and cost comparisons can be made before migration.

The high resolution of infrastructure information and depth of granular monitoring capability available today deliver key benefits over the traditional legacy monitoring tools still on the market. Real-time insights from this new generation of tools mean that anomalies lasting for a few milli-seconds can easily reveal important performance spikes that will be missed by tools only capable of measuring every few minutes.

Mind the gap: the impact of a lack of application workload intelligence

Prior to this technology, organisations didn’t have a detailed understanding of their application workloads or performance requirements. They didn’t understand what the peak ‘seasons’ or workload behaviour patterns for older applications were, nor did they have any intelligence about the performance of other applications that they’re perhaps not focused on, which could potentially cause an issue. Without those insights, enterprises wouldn’t have any idea of how to take real action for improved performance and cost savings.

If it was revealed that an organisation was significantly overprovisioning, for example, it could move its on-premise configuration to the cloud, and implement right-sizing in the process capable of yielding substantial cost savings, with a built-in contingency to ensure correct provisioning. With the right tools, such decisions could be made with confidence, as they wouldn’t be based on guess-work, but on actual historical data.

Awareness of application dependencies

Many enterprises are unaware of the multiple application dependencies on services that they perhaps weren’t planning to move in phase one of their migration. These scenarios can cause unwelcome and unplanned for issues after the fact.

Companies tend to spend a lot of time on due diligence for a critical application of concern, and then return as a trader for another one, only to find the latter turns out to have a performance issue. This common occurrence delays the whole process, resulting in only moving a hundred or so applications, instead of the few thousand that were originally planned.

As every organisation has its own unique infrastructure environment, having a detailed map of interdependencies means that IT teams and CIOs alike can be empowered with the certainty of what they can and need to move to the cloud with the exact cost/saving.

The four phases of intelligent cloud migration

This is why the planning phase and pre-work of a cloud migration strategy is so key to its success. In this initial phase, cloud providers should be questioned in advance about the cost of running applications in their cloud.

With the aid of migration planning proper tools, the stage of profiling workload characteristics should include testing for the discovery and identification of application dependencies between compute, networking, and storage (as mentioned above), utilising real-time insights and empirical data – as opposed to a best guess in terms of what services it uses. This vital step enables the accurate characterisation of workload performance, which removes all guesswork, providing assurance and peace of mind.

With these accurate insights, IT teams can then take into account their unique corporation’s own detailed, on-premise dependencies and performance requirements to create synthetic workloads to playback in the cloud. In this phase, teams can compare and select cost-optimal configurations that work best for them.

And the benefits to this approach don’t end there – this functionality will also enable the preservation of performance in the cloud even after the migration is complete- with the ability to monitor for any capacity or performance issues post-migration.

With the right strategy and tools in place, organisations can confidently reap the full benefits of the public cloud. Armed with a full understanding of application performance requirements and their dependencies, and workload simulation, enterprises can finally mitigate the inherent risks to successfully migrate to the most cost-effective public cloud environment for each of their key applications.

Despite the lack of sufficient LTE coverage in parts of the world, mobile operators and vendors have already embarked on R&D initiatives to develop 5G, the next evolution in mobile networks. 5G is expected to provide a single network environment to deliver not only existing mobile broadband and IoT services, but also new innovations such as self-driving cars, cloud robotics, 3D holographic telepresence and remote surgery with haptic feedback.

In fact, many mobile operators are betting on 5G to diversify their revenue streams, as conventional voice and data service ARPUs decline globally. For example, South Korea’s KT has established a dedicated business unit for holograms, which it envisions to be a key source of revenue for its future 5G network.

At present, the 3GPP and other SDOs (Standards Development Organizations) are engaged in defining the first phase of 5G specifications. However, pre-standards 5G network rollouts are already underway, most notably in the United States and South Korea, as mobile operators rush to be the first to offer 5G services. SNS Research estimates that by the end of 2017, pre-standards 5G network investments are expected to account for over $250 Million.

Although 2020 has conventionally been regarded as the headline date for 5G commercialization, the very first standardized deployments of the technology are expected to be commercialized as early as 2019 with the 3GPP’s initial 5G specifications set to be implementation-ready by March 2018. Between 2019 and 2025, we expect the 5G network infrastructure market to aggressively grow a CAGR of nearly 70%, eventually accounting for $28 Billion in annual spending by the end of 2025. These infrastructure investments will be complemented by annual shipments of up to 520 Million 5G-capable devices.

The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report, as well as a 5G deployment tracking database covering over 60 global 5G trials, demos and commercial deployment commitments (as of Q1’2017).”

Market forecasts are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:

5G R&D Investments

New Air Interface & Millimeter Wave Radio Access

MIMO, Beamforming & Advanced Antenna Technologies

Spectrum Sharing, Aggregation & Interference Management

Virtualization & Cloud RAN

Network Slicing & Other Technologies

Pre-Standards 5G Network Investments

Pre-Standards Base Stations

Pre-Standards User Equipment

Transport Networking & Other Investments

Standardized 5G Infrastructure Investments

5G NR (New Radio)

Distributed Macrocell Base Stations

Small Cells

RRHs (Remote Radio Heads)

C-RAN BBUs (Baseband Units)

NextGen (Next Generation) Core Network

Fronthaul & Backhaul Networking

Standardized 5G User Equipment Investments

Handsets

Tablets

Embedded IoT Modules

USB Dongles

Routers

5G Operator Services

Subscriptions

Service Revenue

Regional Segmentation

Asia Pacific

Eastern Europe

Latin & Central America

Middle East & Africa

North America

Western Europe

The report provides answers to the following key questions:

How big is the opportunity for 5G network infrastructure, user equipment and operator services?

What trends, challenges and barriers will influence the development and adoption of 5G?

How will 5G drive the adoption of AR (Augmented Reality)/VR (Virtual Reality) applications such as 3D holographic telepresence and 360 degree streaming of live events?

How have advanced antenna and chip technologies made it possible to utilize millimeter wave spectrum for mobile communications in 5G networks?

How can non-orthogonal multiple access schemes such as RSMA (Resource Spread Multiple Access) enable 5G networks to support higher connection densities for Millions of IoT devices?

What will be the number of 5G subscriptions in 2019 and at what rate will it grow?

Which regions and countries will be the first to adopt 5G?

Which frequency bands are most likely to be utilized by 5G networks?

Who are the key 5G vendors and what are their strategies?

Will 5G networks rely on a disaggregated RAN architecture?

How will 5G impact the fiber industry?

Will satellite communications and aerial networking platforms play a wider role in 5G networks?

The report has the following key findings:

The Unites States and South Korea are spearheading early investments in pre-standards 5G trial networks, as mobile operators rush to be the first to offer 5G networks. SNS Research estimates that by the end of 2017, pre-standards 5G network investments are expected to account for over $250 Million.

Following completion of the 3GPP’s first phase of 5G specifications in March 2018, SNS Research expects that early adopters across the globe will simultaneously begin commercializing 5G services in 2019.

Between 2019 and 2025, we expect the 5G network infrastructure market to aggressively grow a CAGR of nearly 70%, eventually accounting for $28 Billion in annual spending by the end of 2025.

Although early 5G R&D investments have primarily targeted the radio access segment, network-slicing has recently emerged as necessary “”end-to-end”” capability to guarantee performance for different 5G applications which may have contrasting requirements.

In order to support diverse usage scenarios, 5G networks are expected to utilize a variety of frequency bands ranging from established sub-6 GHz cellular bands to millimeter wave spectrum.

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